Time Team's Mick Aston Quits After Row

[Peter Parka]

Don't blame him, I'm fed up of the dumbing down of telly and it seems no programme is safe. People watch time team to hear from experts in that field, not to ogle models.

[h=1]Time Team expert quits after show hires former model – Daily TV round-up[/h]
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‘Time Team’ archaeologist Mick Aston has quit the series after the show hired a former model as co-presenter.

Aston, the show's former site director, is said to be angry about the direction that the Channel 4 programme has taken.

The 65-year-old professor has been on the show for 19 years, but his departure comes after the hiring of Mary-Ann Ochota to co-present with Tony Robinson and the letting go of some of the show's other archaeologists.

It's said that anger stemmed from the show's producers’ plans to seek a new female co-presenter who 'does not have to be overly experienced or knowledgeable as we have plenty of expertise within the existing team' and also what he thought were plans to 'cut down the informative stuff about the archaeology'.

“The time had come to leave. I never made any money out of it, but a lot of my soul went into it. I feel really, really angry about it,” he told British Archaeology magazine.

“Whatever happened, we’d all thought, we’ll complete the 20th series. It feels very sad that I shan’t do that. I’m not proud of ‘Time Team’, it hasn’t worked.”

Ochota, who joined the 19th series of the show, has a degree in anthropology and archaeology from Cambridge University. [Daily Telegraph]

http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/time-team-expert-quits-after-show-hires-former-model-–-daily-tv-round-up.html

 

[skyblue]

nothing wrong with eye candy if she knows what shes talking about

 

[HK]

I don't watch Time Team so I can't say if he's accurate but this:

“Whatever happened, we’d all thought, we’ll complete the 20th series. It feels very sad that I shan’t do that. I’m not proud of ‘Time Team’, it hasn’t worked.”

Sounds more like sour grapes than anything.

 

[Zorak]

Sounds more like sour grapes than anything.[/COLOR]

What it sounds like to me as well. She sounds more qualified than Tony Robinson.

 

[Peter Parka]

What it sounds like to me as well. She sounds more qualified than Tony Robinson.

Baldrick has lived in the dark ages, the Elizebethan period, the Regency period, the Victorian age and the first world war. How dare you question his credentials!

 

[Zorak]

Baldrick has lived in the dark ages, the Elizebethan period, the Regency period, the Victorian age and the first world war. How dare you question his credentials!

Haha, true.

Aston is being a dick though. Time team has never been a show about pure archeology. Real archeologists hate time team, because they impose stupid arbitrary timelines onto their digging to make for better tv; among other reasons. He didn't seem to mind before the compromise made between entertainment and "informative stuff".
The real reason he's leaving is probably money, if you ask me.

 

[Abcinthia]

I always wanted to be an archaeologist on Time Team when I was younger. It was my greatest wish to dig in a hole, perhaps find something that I can show on camera (before one of the main archaeologists sweeps in before I get too much time on tv) and then to be in the background whilst they are in the pub.