History YMMV / Bonekickers

* WTHCastingAgency: The final episode casts Creator/DexterFletcher, best known for his Cockney geezer persona, as a country gent.

* ShockingSwerve: 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 AncientConspiracy has gone to a lot of trouble to find and Creator/AlfredLordTennyson 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 VillainOfTheWeek 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.

* CriticalResearchFailure: At the beginning of "Cradle of Civilization" Magwilde outright states that the ancient Britons made nothing of any historical importance; for an archaeologist, she's remarkably ignorant of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae Skara Brae]], an island off the coast of Scotland that contains the oldest intact human habitation in ''recorded history.'' Not to mention that anyone who thinks that only the big impressive monuments matter is not fit to ''be'' an archaeologist.

%%* {{Narm}}: Where to start?

* SoBadItsGood: The British press treated the series with, at first, BileFascination, but later decided it was a SoBadItsGood GuiltyPleasure. 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 UsefulNotes/TheCrusades 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.

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** At the beginning of "Cradle of Civilization" Magwilde outright states that the ancient Britons made nothing of any historical importance; for an archaeologist, she's remarkably ignorant of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae Skara Brae]], an island off the coast of Scotland that contains the oldest intact human habitation in ''recorded history.'' Not to mention that anyone who thinks that only the big impressive monuments matter is not fit to ''be'' an archaeologist.
** Another episode revolved around the discovery of a ship that delivered slaves to England... about a decade after slavery was ended in England.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** As WebVideo/DiamandaHagan put it, Dolly Parton is meant to be charming and roguish, but comes off as a middle-aged, alcoholic potential rapist.
** She also notes that Viv acts like she has two personalities - one with an IQ of 60 and the other with an IQ of 140.

* HarsherInHindsight: With the resurgence of British Nationalist movements like the UK Independence Party, a villain like Layglass no longer seems quite as far-fetched.

* MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales: As stated below, this show was actually quite popular with real-life archaeologists because of how many things it got ''wrong''.

** At the beginning of "Cradle of Civilization" Magwilde outright states that the ancient Britons made nothing of any historical importance; for an archaeologist, she's remarkably ignorant of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae Skara Brae]], an island off the coast of Scotland that contains the oldest intact human habitation in ''recorded history.''
*** Not to mention that anyone who thinks that only the big impressive monuments matter is not fit to ''be'' an archaeologist.

* HarsherInHindsight: With the resurgence of British Nationalist movements like the UK Indepedence Party, a villain like Layglass no longer seems quite as far-fetched.

* {{Narm}}: Where to start?
* ShockingSwerve: 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 AncientConspiracy has gone to a lot of trouble to find and Creator/AlfredLordTennyson 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 VillainOfTheWeek 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.