User Reviews

Let me first address how terrible the name of the show is and how terrible it is that they basically build up around commercials by hinting that Ben Franklin may have done something sinister involving dead bodies. Even to the end of the show they continue to insinuate he may have done something wrong but then walk away from that over and over. The good show is about stories you've heard in different places. The early means by which bodies were gathered for study. Where people lived and how they tied together in history. It's a really great story right to the end.

I enjoy the PBS series "Secrets of the Dead". However, I must acknowledge that sometimes the show was less scientific and educational...choosing to be salacious in order to gain viewers. This is certainly the case with "Ben Franklin's Bones"...a show that throws about all sorts of crazy notions instead of simply reporting the facts.

The story begins in the 1990s. There is a grisly discovery in the basement of a London flat...it's filled with thousands of human bones. Coincidentally, for a brief time, Benjamin Franklin was one of many residents of the apartments. So, instead of looking at the mystery, the narrator tosses out all sorts of crazy notions...including 'could Franklin have been a serial killer'!!! It's all complete hogwash...especially because the answer to this perplexing problme ISN'T particularly surprising or unusual! So, be prepred...you'll hear a lot of stupid tie-ins with Franklin that simply are not appropriate and the show SHOULD have been simpler, less salacious and more entertaining in the long run had they just told the truth.