AFTER a "real good spring cleaning," Time Team has returned, as has its beloved host, Sir Tony Robinson.
For two decades, archaeological fans of all ages tuned in to the Channel 4 staple as Sir Tony and the crew unearthed mysteries of long-lost civilisations across the U.K. and beyond.
Created by Tim Taylor, the show originally debuted in 1994 and went on to produce over 200 episodes in which prehistoric remains, Roman temples and villas, civil war remnants, the hall of a Saxon King, and everything in between was revealed.
Ultimately, despite efforts to reinvigorate the format in its later stages, Time Team came to an end in 2014.
RISING FROM THE ASHES
But over the last few years, thanks to a new home on YouTube , the show emerged from the ashes
Taylor spearheaded an effort to bring Time Team back via crowdfunding on Patreon, and in 2021, filming resumed on two new digs featuring much of the original crew.
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A further two episodes were released in 2023, before Sir Tony made his long-awaited comeback for their most recent Band of Brothers special.
But admittedly, the much-loved actor, author, and documentary filmmaker initially had no intention to return.
'WHY ISN'T TONY BACK?'
In a recent interview with The Sun, Sir Tony explained: "When Time Team finished, I thought to myself, okay, I've done 20 years.
"If ever it gets remounted, it's important that it should have new faces. Like so many television programs successfully do…
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"It seemed to me that my responsibility towards Time Team really was not, was not to be greedy, even though an awful lot of the people involved in it were still close friends."
However, despite the success of new hosts Gus Casely-Hayford and Natalie Haynes, Sir Tony admitted that "in the most flattering way possible, the internet went abuzz with people saying 'Why isn't Tony coming back?'"
Eventually, Taylor reached out with two proposals for Sir Tony.
"He said, 'I've got two ideas. One of them is that we should clear the rights to all the old documentaries that we made.
"Because in addition to the 200 Times Teams we made, we had this back catalogue of documentaries, which I don't think ever got the attention and the plaudits, which they deserved…
"So he wanted to promote the back catalogue, but he also wanted to make some new documentaries as well."
BIG CHANGES
The first of Sir Tony's new documentaries was released on September 30 on YouTube and covered the work of Operation Nightingale.
The project saw veterans of both the British and American armed forces head to Wiltshire to unearth the former home of the US 101st Airborne Division's Band of Brothers during WWII.
Being a special, the show wasn't limited to its usual three-day format, instead taking eight days to excavate the site.
And this wasn't the only change.
No longer under the watchful eye of Channel 4, as Sir Tony noted, they weren't limited to a "family slot" on TV.
As such, while "they're still entertainingly made, I just think there's more archaeology now."
'AN EXTRAORDINARILY GOOD FORMAT'
In the almost three weeks since the episode went live, it has amassed over 900,000 views.
This success is no surprise, given that their classic episodes regularly hit hundreds of thousands of views, with some even having eclipsed one million.
"I think it's an extraordinarily good format," Sir Tony said.
"Television makers all over the world are constantly looking for a new series that you can sum up in one sentence, but it's a sentence that has never been used to describe the program before.
"And I think we managed to do that. I think, archaeology in three days is a beautiful description of a programme.
"And we've always wanted to ensure that the people who were involved in it were not only very good archaeologists, but were entertaining as well, that they presented their information in an entertaining way, and you could clearly see that they were having a good time doing what they were doing.
"And I think if they're having a good time, then those people watching it will tend to have a good time."
THE VALUE OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Time Team's success over the past almost three decades wound up not only entertaining viewers across the globe, but also inspiring many.
Tony explained: "Archaeology is a discipline that has been thought of as so obscure that no one even knew how to spell the word.
"That's hardly a way to publicize this and make people interested in it, is it?
"And I think what we've been able to do is show that this discipline is not only exciting, but that it can tell you an awful lot about your life, or the lives of the people who live around the area that you're doing the excavation have played out and how it's played out for people in the past.
"And we can also continually, within the context of the programme, argue that you need to look after your archaeology because it's irreplaceable and that you need good legislation.
"You need skilled people doing it, if you find stuff you need to report it, you need to protect it against theft…all those things which mean that there will be archaeology in the future, only happen if people are aware of how valuable it is."
SIR TONY'S NEW ADVENTURE
Looking ahead, and the Band of Brothers special is seemingly only the beginning for Sir Tony's new adventure with the show.
"I feel very philosophical about it now, as long as they want me to do it. We don't make nearly as many as we used to.
"At its height, we were making thirteen Time Teams, four documentaries, and four other documentaries.
"So that's 21 hours. Making 21 hours of television a year takes up most of the year.
"But now it's only taking me, I don't know, six weeks a year and that's great because it allows me to do all my other projects, which I want and I'm happy to do. So it's working very well for me."
Sir Tony may be back wearing the recognisable golden logo, however, he doesn't anticipate returning to the three-day digs any time soon.
"They've now developed a new generation of skilled presenters who I think do it just as well as I ever did," he said.
'SUCH AN ACCOLADE'
This full-circle moment has given Sir Tony the opportunity to continue what he's spent so much of his professional career focusing on: educating others.
And upon reflection, the mild-mannered septuagenarian cited his own lack of education, in the conventional sense, as his driving force.
"I never had much of an education myself. I left school at 16. So I never went to university," he explained.
"This thing called education has just been, really, always been my hunger to find out about stuff.
"And because I didn't have much of a training in anything, I was eager to work out whether the things that really clever people knew about, I could have access to.
"And 99 times out of 100, I've found that it's just about the vocabulary.
"And once you bust open the vocabulary, then ordinary ignoramuses like you and me can share in that knowledge.
"And that's what I've always wanted to do. And, you know, people still come up to me today and say, for instance, 'I went into archaeology because of what you told me on television.' And that's such an accolade."
WHAT'S NEXT?
Unsurprisingly, Sir Tony's next project besides Time Team will see him host another documentary series.
The six-part UKTV series called Tony Robinson's Marvelous Machines, "came about because outside my house, they were tarmacking the road with a machine that was wonderful.
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"I've never seen anything like it before. I wouldn't have known it was a tarmacking machine if it wasn't actually doing the job, if it was just parked up.
"And I thought there must be glorious machines that I know nothing about coming on stream, even as I speak, which actually are going to affect my life enormously."
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