The Tower
Studio: Channel 4/Koch Vision
WorkNameSort: Tower, The
384 minutes of documentary on any building ‘ even the 900-year-old Tower of London ‘ is a bit much. Scratch that. It’s just too much. While viewers of BBC’s Channel 4 may have lapped up this six-hour-long hagiographic look at William the Conqueror’s imposing structure, it’s worth noting here that the recent Planet Earth series clocked in at just over 10 hours â?¦ and it was about the entire world. That’s not to say the bloody intrigues that have transpired within the walls of the Tower are not fascinating; indeed, this series does a marvelous job at sexing up even the most mundane matters of the royal court. Truth be told, though, The Tower is less a history of a building than it is a surprisingly engaging timeline of the last millennium of British monarchy in all its madness and mischief.
This article appears in May 16-22, 2007.