Archaeology is underused. Chaucer looks in once, and Spenser appears only in his views on Irish colonization. More importantly, Schama is very good, visually and verbally, on grand architecture, a subject to which he brings both authority and passion. The massiveness of Kenilworth suggests the baronial power of Simon de Montfort, and the Abbey of Pontigny is an emblem of Thomas Becket's hard-edged implacability. Yet it is significant that Schama generally makes architectural points in order to illuminate personalities.
Glamorous people dominate the series, especially from the Angevin age.
And the sort of popular history demanded by television requires the historian presenter to buttonhole prominent dead people in the manner of a reporter. Schama does this masterfully. The updating spin put on some of the great set pieces sometimes works, and sometimes it does not. Moreover, the story of Becket's struggle with Henry over the supremacy of church law above state law marks an interesting instance in which the television screen imposes a different emphasis from the written page. The things that television can do, it does very well here.