To be honest I'm a fan of most documentaries on these kinds of subjects done by channel 4 and the BBC. And I'd prefer to support something like that as it deifnitely had a target audience that I'm sure recieved it well. Like when people moaned about some of the things Jesus did he said "I did not come for the healthy". But I think you can try too hard to make it presentable and approachable, and miss the heart of why people who have worked these things out are interested in them. Its as much about what we don't know, as it is abbout what we do know. And by jumping the corners and making the best idea of what it could have been like, you are presenting something people see as educating themselves at best.

That may not make sense, so I'll put it another way. One thing both science and religion play down far too much is mystery IMO. It stirs the greatest scientists and the greatest saints. But in our modern world that sense of mystery in both science and religion has been compromised, resulting is pseudo science and pseudo religion gripping the imaginations of people who are just searching for something they know is missing, and being cheated on the way. In science and religion that is a difficult thing to overcome. The scientists are dealing with such specialised subjects that to present only the mysteries divorced from the details inevitably leads to misconceptions that degrade the very mysteries into jokes. The religious are dealing with a world where even the lay scientist is prepared to accept that the mysteries remaining are a few little technical details that need to be tidied up. How much less can the person on the street feel involved in such things, or even that they are relevant to them.

So I don't think there is any easy answer. The BBC decided to make a series that would seem familiar and entertaining and not seen in any way as a technical thesis. But in doing so they compromised on blurring the distinction between what we know and what we're guessing at, and left little to stir people to want to know more.

Anyway, I'm going to watch the rest of the Gengis Khan docu-drama shown earlier. From what I've seen so far, its a far better way of approaching these things IMO. If the people who did the "walking with" series had been given this kind of remit, rather than the one I assume they where given, it could have met the expectations of the casual observer and the interested expert far better.

Simon