2012 was a good year for medieval television. HBO aired the second season of its extremely popular series \’Game of Thrones\’ adapted from GRR Martin\’s books.
Tandem Productions the creators of 2011\’s Pillars of the Earth, brought us the sequel, World Without End. While not as strong as Pillars, World Without End was still a quality show. If you missed the show you can read our World Without End reviews.
The History Channel gave us two medieval programs, one a reality jousting program and the other a documentary from Mike Loades.
Full Metal Jousting, hosted by jousting champ Shane Adams, was a 10-part reality show pitting contestants against each other in a jousting tournament. Thankfully it wasn\’t filled with the normal idiotic drama that permeates most reality programming. The contestants took the jousting serious and it was an enjoyable show. With all the bad reality shows on the HISTORY channel I would have liked to see a second season of Full Metal Jousting. Read all the the FMJ recaps on Medieval Archives.
Going Medieval was written and hosted by Mike Loades and premiered on H2(formerly History International)
\”Mike looks at castle building techniques, knights, medieval travel on sea and land, town life, the arms race between armour and the longbow, hunting, falconry, cooking and feasting, agriculture (including ploughing with oxen), laundry, leeching, the plague, siege warfare and medieval artillery.\”
And then there was Battle Castle. Created and produced by Parallax Films and hosted by Dan Snow, Battle Castle was hands down the best documentary series of the year! Battle Castle isn\’t your average documentary, Snow was a hands on host, visiting Guedelon France to build a castle medieval style and Caerphilly Castle to fire medieval siege weapons. He explored six different castles and examined their history. But the series didn\’t stop there, each episode also highlighted a battle that defined the castle.
If you missed Battle Castle or just want to relive its greatness read through the reviews. And if you missed them I interviewed Battle Castle writer Nicole Tomlinson, cinematographer Sean F. White and host Dan Snow.
What are your favorite medieval TV moments of 2012? Share them below in the comments, on the Medieval Archives twitter feed, or on the Medieval Archives Facebook page.
Next up: 2012 Medieval Movies
[simple_series title=\”More 2012 Medieval Year in Review\”]
