I know this series was never meant to be a documentary but why is everyone so "pretty"? Victoria was short, somewhat stout and a bit homely, with a large nose and no chin. Albert was not much better and started balding early. Yet this Victoria is slim and very pretty and feminine. Don't remember any photos of Albert…

Have never heard males can produce breast milk under any conditions, they certainly cannot get pregnant. nor should they need to. A cow needs to have a calf to produce milk, that's why dairy farmers make sure they have a calf every year. Chickens however can produce edible eggs without a rooster. Its only when you…

Good for you Mark!!! Just because we are well-educated and have opportunities doesn't mean we can escape primal needs. The female is still the only one that can have a child and when we had to breastfeed the infant we couldn't ask a male to do that. As a spiritual believer I see the lesson - it takes both parents to…

Absolutely. Say, has anyone there really seen the Queen? It's been before Christmas and that's a long time for them. She has at least one engagement every day where she is seen but everyone is mum. She is 90 after all. Would feel better if she just appeared to let us know she was all right. The silence is kind of like…

Wasn't the Herne character from Roman times in Britain? Loved that show, especially where they upset the bee skeps and sent everyone running - foiled an unwanted marriage. Robert Addie played the Sheriff's sidekick and was compassionate towards the bride's fears. And where the sheriff tested him about where his…

If it is Ivar and his leg bones still exist then forensics should tell if it is a male of his age whose leg bones and hip joints show a much different kind of wear Dead giveaway. Oh, pardon the pun…

I know, I know. But all you have to do is look at logical certainties and how we are engineered. There's no shame in being female, wanting children and now, also wanting a career It's not a matter of "doing it all" but of managing it all. Shoot, these days the woman HAS to work- we've needed that second income to…

Mystery makes it all interesting and suspenseful. I'm thinking a quick washing to rid the itchy feeling indicates it is topical - the skin just doesn't like this stuff. And it might be genetic, especially for those of us descended out of Britain. My family is very inbred. Even after we were transported to Georgia in…

I think he made an enemy of Harald and Halfdan by ordering them out of the mosque. Floki can't have it both ways - he should stick to fighting but mainly to his boat-building. And he's heading to splitsville if he keeps up his treatment of Helga. Most females are hard-wired to want babies, it's how we keep punting…

Nah, she's a little too old and that late miscarriage she had probably wrote off her baby-making ability. She will die by the sword as she chose to live by it and we will have to let her go as we let Ragnar go. The work passes to the next generation.

His face looks like burning oil was thrown into it.

Me too. They are a greasy pair but true to type. Have a feeling they resent Bjorn's less primitive attitude but to get to him they have to go thru Rollo and that ain't happening.

Remember the Robin Hood series that introduced Clannad's music? Very realistic history with Robin being played by a dark haired peasant who gathered the band but got killed and a blond nobleman who thought they were in the right took up the torch Wasn't there an "Arab" who wore paired swords on his back and fought…

Wasn't his ailment something to do with being unable to control his bowels? Yikes - awkward. Then he prayed for that "cross" to be lifted and would accept a different one. Turned out to be acute shyness or what we would call stage fright. Not good for a ruler but in those days they counted on deeds, not words. He got…

Yes, Christianity was newer but not as well organized as today and certainly not as troublesome to produce the Lollards and then Luther, Calvin and Knox in the Reformation. But its message was a civilizing one and rulers who employed it gained some advantage. Alfred himself was a younger son who nearly took holy…

I wonder if that was deliberate - to make all the men look somehow lesser with Ragnar gone?

Wasn't that Lawrence Olivier in "Khartoum"? He played The Mahdi and not only did that but painted the inside of his mouth red - don't know why.

Saw a photo of Ivar with longer hair cornrowed back along the top like so many of the other Vikings. Cumberbatch was so much more masculine/rough than the wily shamming Lawrence Olivier as Richard III. And the black actress as Queen Margarite - fantastic surprise! Don't know about the Norse landing at L'anse aux…

The Origen of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. Recommend it to everyone who wants an explanation of how we passed from believing the Gods were real and could talk to us, touch us, even rape us (Europa and the Bull) and that we could bargain with them for what we wanted. Then we…

Oh dear, not the Welsh again. Probably because Alfred was a descendant of Saxon invaders after Rome left. The Cornish and Welsh are Celts - they were there first and got pushed west by the Saxons. Centuries later came the heathen army and the Saxons got to feel what the Celts felt. Two hundred years after that came…