YMMV / Bonekickers

• Ass Pull: There's quite a few in the show, but the crowning one is at the very end of the series, and strangely, it's an inversion of a typical plot twist. OK, putting aside everything else, Magwilde has been chasing a sword forged centuries ago from meteorite metal, a sword that an Ancient Conspiracy has gone to a lot of trouble to find and Alfred, Lord Tennyson went to a lot of trouble to hide. On being found, the sword is clearly glowing underwater and hasn't degraded despite being underwater for decades. The Villain of the Week grabs the sword - and it's revealed that it's just a sword. No, seriously. And to top it off, it's implied that the villain was some sort of ghost, which makes the reveal that there's nothing special about the sword even more ridiculous.
• Designated Heroine: Magwilde is petulant, temperamental, self-righteous, incompetent, borderline insane, has a worryingly dismissive (and ignorant) attitude towards the artifacts she finds, treats everyone on her team like dirt, violates the scientific method every episode and is always right.
• Ham and Cheese: Hugh Bonnevile left no scenery unchewed as Dolly.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The villain of the first episode is a fundamentalist-Christian anti-immigrant politician. The character was derided by many reviewers as being far closer to an American politician than any UK politico. If the same episode were made today, he'd be seen as a blatant parody of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).
• Misaimed Fandom: As stated below, this show was actually quite popular with real-life archaeologists because of how many things it got wrong.
• Questionable Casting: The final episode casts Dexter Fletcher, best known for his Cockney geezer persona, as a country gent.
• Shocking Moments: There's quite a few in the show, but the crowning one is at the very end of the series, and strangely, it's an inversion of a typical plot twist. OK, putting aside everything else, Magwilde has been chasing a sword forged centuries ago from meteorite metal, a sword that an Ancient Conspiracy has gone to a lot of trouble to find and Alfred, Lord Tennyson went to a lot of trouble to hide. On being found, the sword is clearly glowing underwater and hasn't degraded despite being underwater for decades. The Villain of the Week grabs the sword - and it's revealed that it's just a sword. No, seriously. And to top it off, it's implied that the villain was some sort of ghost, which makes the reveal that there's nothing special about the sword even more ridiculous.
• So Bad, It's Good: The British press treated the series with, at first, Bile Fascination, but later decided it was a So Bad, It's Good Guilty Pleasure. The show was immensely popular with real archaeologists for its factually absurd details like cleaning ancient bones with metal tools and standing on the edges of trenches, ludicrous ignorance of history (such as treating it as a history-book rewriting mystery when hearing the skeleton of an English Crusader was found carrying a Saracen coin, which is easily explicable based on knowing anything about The Crusades at all) and for Dr Magwilde, the leader of the team who knows nothing about history, appreciates it mainly based on who was creating the biggest buildings (calling Stonehenge a 'rockery'), and routinely throws away and breaks historical artifacts.

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