Spiny Norman

The Banquet - S5-E3

Factual error: The library contains books as we know them, with a spine. But Roman libraries had scrolls.

Spiny Norman

The Banquet - S5-E3

Factual error: During The Banquet, everyone is seated at the dinner table. But Romans famously ate reclining. They should have lain down to eat.

Spiny Norman

Factual error: Twice during the movie, streetlights are visible: once when lady Russell informs Anne of Wentworth's engagements, and once while Anne is running after Wentworth. (Streetlights, lit by gas, were indeed conceived during the regency period - but they were experimental curiosities, and certainly not yet installed nationwide).

Spiny Norman

The Wounds of War - S2-E5

Factual error: Teddy says that he hates the stories by Wodehouse about the stuttering Bertie Wooster. However, Wooster only had a stutter in the 1965 TV series "World of Wooster", not in the original stories or in any other adaptations such as "Jeeves and Wooster." "You Rang" is set in the 1920s, and thus 40 years too early to have seen that program on television.

Spiny Norman

Episode #1.3 - S1-E3

Factual error: In the Scarlet Pimpernel sketch, the opening caption reads "France, 1778." This is the Scarlet Pimpernel who rescues people during the "Reign of Terror", as is confirmed several times during the sketch. But the French Revolution was still eleven years away and its Reign of Terror wouldn't start until 1793.

Spiny Norman

Show generally

Factual error: The forces of Cassiopeia all sport the crown-like "W" sign which is the shape of that constellation... but only as seen from earth! These five points in three-dimensional space (like all star signs named after anything) look like that when viewed from our own planet; but from anywhere else, they aren't shaped like that at all. Why would they chose to see themselves through a very specific angle of view from some other distant planet (earth)?

Spiny Norman

Factual error: The place where Jamie is writing his novel is revealed to be Marseilles, France, when he flies back to propose. In the first part of their story, it might have been Portugal; his housekeeper spoke French, which is a common second language in that country; and Aurelia only spoke Portuguese. Yet in the entire second part, no-one speaks any French at all; only Portuguese and a few words of English. Sure enough there are many Portuguese families living in France; but they do not have their own linguistic enclave in Marseilles, and any generation growing up there would have learnt French as well. Either the language or the airport name are wrong.

Spiny Norman

The Queen Must Die - S2-E12

Factual error: In the last minutes, the show looks forward to future challenges, in effect a preview of the never-made 3rd series. The oracle says they must find "the golden fleece, woven long ago by the Stygian witches." But the golden fleece, or indeed any fleece, is not a woven fabric. (Today's fleece is a modern invention).

Spiny Norman

Sucker Bait - S1-E7

Factual error: It is quite true that atoms that do not occur naturally are bad for humans. However, in a space age as this story's, that would apply to most or even all planets. It would be a well known risk that didn't require an abnormal specialist to diagnose. (This fact rarely figures in other SF, because it would severely limit most stories).

Spiny Norman