Parents' Guide to

MysteryQuest

By Anne Louise Bannon, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 11+

Iffy conclusions mar otherwise educational history docu.

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A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Community Reviews

age 2+

Based on 1 parent review

age 2+

Puh-lease!

Having seen the episode on the "haunting" at Wolf Manor in Clovis, CA, I'm completely unimpressed. They indeed tend to go into these investigations with a preconceived notion. One thing that really undermined this show was their continued assertion that the Amityville haunting was a fact when, in actuality, it has long since been debunked as an elaborate hoax. Come on, History Channel, give us some credit!

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1):
Kids say: Not yet rated

Even the ancient Greeks noted that history is generally written by the winners, which can put a different spin on what happened. Here, it sometimes seems like the writers go into a particular mystery with a preconceived idea of what happened and only look at evidence that supports that idea -- with the result that the narration is often contradictory.

For example, in an episode seeking to explain whether Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun killed themselves in the waning days of World War II, a scientist discovers that the piece of skull that the Russians have claimed was Hitler's in fact belonged to a woman. The episode repeatedly notes that Braun and Hitler's remains were supposedly kept together -- but instead of pointing out that the bone fragment could have been Braun's (apparently they decided without discussing it that because the piece of bone contained a hole consistent with a gun suicide that it couldn't be hers because she was poisoned), they reinforce the theory that Hilter escaped the bunker. This is just one example of the show's many confuding leaps in logic, which unfortunately largely undermines the some of the good points and evidence that it otherwise brings forth.

TV Details

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