A Trip Back in Time With Baggage reviews the latest PBS House reality show, Colonial House:
Everything about the series is as accurate as anthropologists could make it. Our colonists, clad in the pantaloons and corsets of the era, arrive under sail. Unlike the originals, the new settlers (initially, there are 19) find four period houses already built for them, but otherwise they are on their own. In the cold of a May Maine, their only warmth comes from fires they must start with flints, using wood they must chop themselves. The only bathroom is a field or the forest floor, and for families with indentured servants (some young Britons) there is no privacy at home either. Everything necessary for their survival must be acquired through their own labor — carrying water, milking goats, scrounging for edibles — every day, all day.