‘Secrets of the Dead: Abandoning the Titanic’ Review: An Unanswered SOS

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

“Abandoning the Titanic” isn’t the first time that the long-running series “Secrets of the Dead” has dealt with maritime history’s most famous disaster, and it probably won’t be the last. The “unsinkable” ship might have gone to a watery grave in 1912. But its boatload of questions has never stopped bobbing to the surface.

While still afloat, the RMS Titanic, the pride of the White Star line, represented the state of the art in sea travel and shipbuilding. Famously—and disastrously—there weren’t enough lifeboats on board during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York because, of course, they wouldn’t be needed. The iceberg disproved that theory, and once the ship went down it became a symbol not just of class struggle, privilege and incompetence but the arrogance of technology—something that can’t help but be refreshed from generation to generation.

But “Abandoning the Titanic” isn’t only about rehashing the alleged inadequacies of Capt. Edward Smith, or the errors of judgment made up and down the line, or any of the what-ifs that have always been part of the Titanic tale. It’s about the “mystery ship” that failed to respond to the Titanic’s SOS, despite the Marconi operator sending “frantic pulses of Morse Code into the unseeing night,” as narrator Jay O. Sanders puts it so dramatically. The other ship was only a few miles away. And that’s where it stayed.

The approach of “Abandoning the Titanic” seems a bit overwrought for PBS, though it’s tame compared with how Discovery or History would treat the same subject. Still, the music throbs, Mr. Sanders takes a more-than-judgmental tone, and no one understates the miscalculations and/or missteps of the Titanic crew. Most of the umbrage, however, is reserved for the ship in the distance. To this viewer’s surprise, the question at the heart of the show—i.e., the identity of that ship—is actually answered. And the name of Stanley Lord—captain of another relatively nearby ship, the Californian, and the scapegoat of the earliest Titanic inquiries—is cleared.

Predictably enough, “Abandoning the Titanic” is out to debunk the debunkable wherever it can. The sendoff from Southampton was not the gala event that’s often depicted—the Olympic, a sister White Star ship and a comparable marvel, had gotten all the attention when it set sail in 1911. The Titanic wasn’t full, because a coal strike had disrupted shipping and travel plans almost up to departure time. About 50 people had bought tickets and not sailed. The ship was American-owned despite flying a British flag. What’s perhaps most fascinating about “Abandoning the Titanic,” though, are the interviews with a number of descendants of Titanic survivors. Their recollections may be secondhand, but they provide a real connection to a story as big as myth.