Doing DaVinci

I have watched two episodes so far, and unfortunately I am in total agreement with vegaslover. When I saw the previews for the show, I thought "Wow, what a great concept-- they could do so much with that!" However, within a few minutes of watching the first episode, it became clear that they had missed the mark. Basically they have taken the production model of "American Chopper" and applied it to Leonardo da Vinci.

Perhaps that was the way they pitched it, as they felt it was the only way they could get it green-lighted. The trouble is, having a bunch of guys acting like a-holes and complaining about each other and confronting each other--it works for the context of building custom motorcycles (I guess, though I was never very fond of AC), but not for this.

Fact is, watching on-camera interviews of people complaining is not informative, not entertaining, and not worthy of the subject matter: the work of the great Leonardo. If only they would focus on the engineering, construction, and yes--add more historical context! Pointing out the difficulties encountered, fine--but airing the shouting matches drags the whole thing down.

I don't know, perhaps that approach would render it too esoteric for popular consumption, but it is a real shame to see something that could be so cool come up so short.