Trivia / Time Team

• Adored by the Network: More 4 (Channel 4's documentary channel) loves this show, or at least the later seasons of it, and has them on a permanent loop of two episodes every day.
• The Cast Showoff: Phil Harding, an expert flint-knapper and diver as well as a veteran archaeological digger, got to show off his skills on a regular basis.
• Creator Backlash: Mick Aston was very vocal about the show's shift toward the 'softer' aspects of archaeology and anthropology, particularly more emphasis being put on dressing up and staging reenactments. This was what led to his departure in 2012.
• In Memoriam: Twice.
  • Season Nine: Episode "An Ermine Street Pub" carried a dedication to Peter Reynolds, one of the Team's consultant experts.
  • The "Time Team Special: The Real Knights of the Round Table" in 2008 carried a dedication to Paul Allen, a medieval jousting re-enactor, who died a week after an accident while filming a sequence for that episode.
• Missing Episode: The original pilot covering a dig in Dorchester, Oxfordshire. The episode never aired and all copies of the full episode have apparently since been lost. Only one short clip of this episode is still available.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Mick Worthington's role on the series came to an end after he refused to show Tony Robinson some data he'd received over dendrochronology (and did so in quite a rude way). It was the first and last time a contributor had done so on the show. It was unclear whether this was because of the rude way he'd behaved over it, or whether it was because this violated the show's mission to show the archaeological process inclusive of all its mistakes, puzzles, hurdles, and embarrassments.
• Spiritual Successor: To Time Signs, a short 1991 history/archaeology series uncovering the story of a single valley in Devon (soon before it was to be flooded by a reservoir), which producer Tim Taylor first asked Mick Aston to present back in 1988. Phil Harding was brought in to demonstrate some experimental archaeology, bringing together most of the core of the long-running later show. Aston and Taylor subsequently worked on devising the format for what became Time Team, and Aston gathered the soon-to-be familiar assortment of specialists to appear. The final piece in the jigsaw came from Aston running archaeological study courses in Greece, one of which Tony Robinson attended, which led to the two men striking up a friendship, which led in turn to Aston asking Robinson to present the new show.
  • From 2010 onwards, The BBC has broadcast its own archaeology show, Digging for Britain which is presented by Time Team alumnus Dr Alice Roberts. Rashka Dave, one of the show's resident archaeologists, is also formerly of Time Team.
  • Time Team gained its own spiritual successor starting in 2020 in the shape of Channel 4's own Suspiciously Similar Substitute series The Great British Dig. Let us count the ways: fronted by a popular middle-aged comedy actor turned TV presenter (Hugh Dennis) alongside a small team of archaeological experts, each episode picks a different site of historical interest around the country and asks local residents if they can dig up their gardens to try to uncover the evidence of it, then a rotating assortment of finds specialists and historians explain and extrapolate from what they unearth. Yeah, it's basically Time Team with the Serial Numbers Filed Off. Considering it's even broadcast by the same channel, it raises the question of why they didn't simply resurrect the original show... which is what original Time Team creator/producer Tim Taylor ended up doing anyway in 2022, albeit online-only, with the episodes now available on Time Team’s official YouTube channel.
• Technology Marches On: The team is shown adopting new technologies throughout Time Team's long run, most notably the geophysics team's equipment becoming larger, more powerful, and more accurate so that the site directors can better predict where trenches should go. The computers used in the field headquarters also advance by leaps over the years, with early series featuring bulky desktops crowded on tables that were eventually replaced by laptops that got slimmer and slimmer.
• What Could Have Been: In 2005, Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society and the historian John Ashdown-Hills got in touch with the show's producers to see if they would be interested in excavating a Leicester car park. They'd concluded it was on the site of a medieval monastery where the last Plantagenet monarch Richard III had likely been buried after his death in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, which ushered in the Tudor dynasty who ultimately had the building torn down and ensured his resting place was lost to history for 500 years. The producers however had to decline, as such a dig would take longer than the standard three-day window for Time Team projects. Seven years later, that car park was excavated — and King Richard's skeleton was found on the first day.

---