Another Pilgrim Post

November 22, 2006 /

After yesterday’s post about The Scarlet Letter, a tale of Puritans in New England, I thought I’d continue on a theme. After all, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. YAY!

I was intrigued to see an ad in the newspaper for a television show, promising to tell a thorough, factual story of the crossing of the Mayflower and the beginning of the Plymouth colony. As this is Thanksgiving week, I thought it might be an interesting show to watch. The show is called “Desperate Crossing – The Untold Story of the Mayflower”

The story starts in the early 1600s, with the Puritans (as we now call them – they were called separatists back then) fleeing England to escape religious prosecution for their religious beliefs. They first fled to the Netherlands, which allowed for freedom of religion. There, they lived for 12 years, but they found that the culture was not to their liking, and when the Netherlands and Spain threatened to go to war, back to England they went…though not for good. Eventually, they departed for the New World on the Mayflower.

The story is interesting, particularly because it is a more in-depth telling of a story with which we are already familiar, the story of the founding of our country and the famous Thanksgiving tale. A combination of recreations, interviews with historians, and voice-over narration is used to tell the story, and gives you a much better idea of who these folks were, and what they were doing.

The live action sequences were sometimes a bit cheesy for me, though the acting was surprisingly good. At 3 hours, it was a bit long for those of us without TiVo. But if you should find yourself looking for something to watch after the turkey and football this Thanksgiving, and if you want to get a glimpse into who these people were and how they lived, it’s being re-run at 8pm this Thursday on the History Channel.

If this isn’t your speed, perhaps you might prefer to turn on The Family Channel at that time. They’re showing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. 🙂 Happy Thanksgiving!

9 Comments