A spokesman for the Discovery Channel has announced today that the network's flagship Egyptology series for summer 2010 will focus on ten of the subject's least contentious theories. Each episode of Egypt's Biggest General Consensuses will address a topic that the world's Egyptologists unanimously consider to be well understood and uncontroversial. The broadcaster's head of media relations, Mike Willis explained the unusual approach as 'a reaction to audience demand in these uncertain times'. Media commentators, however, have been quick to speculate that Discovery - and the subject of Egyptology - may simply have run out of the sort of 'mysteries' that have been the lifeblood of the archaeotainment industry for decades.

Although many of the specifics of the individual episodes were being closely guarded, Willis did reveal some tantalising details. "We don't just look at the consensus itself," he explained, "we try to get right to the heart of why experts are in such complete agreement, and the reasons are often fascinating. Whether it's the accurate and completely unambiguous note-taking of a nineteenth-century archaeologist or simply the absence of any other hypothesis that better fits the observed facts, there's always a gripping story to tell."

Willis added: "We've spared no expense in bringing those stories to life with the latest in obscenely expensive computerised reconstructions. For example, our laser scanning team spent more than 80 man-hours building a computer model of the conference hall in which Ralph Schorner presented the results of his investigation into the evolution of Late Period funerary texts. This may not be the most well known story in Egyptology, but it really deserves to be - it's a brilliant example of a consensus. I mean, this guy spoke for twenty minutes and there was such a resounding consensus that no-one asked him a question, even though he invited them to. Twice. Thanks to cutting edge technology, when Egypt's Biggest General Consensuses airs next year, our viewers will be transported to the very centre of those 90 seconds of awkward but unanimous silence."

"Some of the best stories we've uncovered are those where a genuinely shocking consensus has just arrived out of the blue, taking the whole world of Egyptology by surprise. Take episode six, for example - The Consensus of the Mutilated Mummy. This is a mummy in the Bolton Museum that's missing its genitalia. There wasn't even a whiff of consensus about it for decades - people had all sorts of different theories, and it was really quite difficult to keep track of them all. The mainstream academics had one hypothesis and then there were all these mavericks with radical new ideas. That never would have done for a TV audience. Then, three months ago, Professor Reynolds pulled a shrivelled cock and balls out of his jacket pocket at his retirement party and bang! Consensus! That's what we're all about."

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