Quite enjoying seeing the Brits getting whacked

You're right. Most of the trouble spots in the world have English finger prints on them. And I love Britain but the truth is the truth.

Oh please...all of the Brits on this show are a bunch of repugnant characters. I'm sticking it out for the remainder of this series (in the US, PBS is airing the final 2 episodes back-to-back on Sun Nov 22), but will probably not watch this again when it returns.

Well what crawled up your arse and died? Is there any nation or civilisation on this Earth that has a "squeaky clean" history? At least the British have also left positive contributions to this world, more so than most actually...

Also, the British have fought in every war in the middle east with the Americans. It has to be said, the Afghans were armed by the American government during the Russo-Afghan War.

If the British were so despicable, the Commonwealth wouldn't even exist because those former colonies chose to join after gaining independence, they weren't forced to against their will. The Commonwealth of nations truly is a force of good. When Ebola struck Sierra Leone, the British were the first to respond with many medical staff who volunteered to go over there and help. The Royal Navy was also involved as well.

I find it utterly hypocritical to criticise a nation's past. For a country that has existed for a 1000 years, it's a bit of a given to have a "darker side" in our past, that's if we really were responsible for all of those things. Besides, aren't the Americans still arming Daesh?

The empire was always hunky dory and I am truly sorry for the negative effects, so I get that. I think it's a bit healthier to form a balanced view of it. People in those days had different attitudes and morals, it would be wrong to say that it was "wholly good" or "bad". To get a clearer picture, contemporary views of the time would be the most relevant to study, people who actually lived under British rule on all corners of the empire, from all walks of life.
The British spread parliamentary democracy and the common law. The English language is a useful tool for business and commerce, many advancements in science, engineering and technology that were produced in Britain were spread to the colonies, the industrial revolution began in Britain, infrastructure was also built there, many of the world's popular sports had their origins in Britain. Although the British Raj was hardly perfect, but the British did ban the Saati and they did stop the thuggee.

The British weren't just the first to abolish the slave trade, but they also enforced the ban worldwide. The RN had an entire fleet dedicated to intercepting ships holding slaves and freeing them from the other empires that were still practicing the slave trade. This was the West African Squadron.
Many people like demonising the British for practicing it in the first place, but slavery and the slave trade were practised by many cultures for thousands of years. European Christians were enslaved by barbary pirates in North Africa for instance. But the difference is, the British ended it whilst those in North Africa were still practising it well in to the early 20th century.

I know you said it was after 1914 things started to go south, but the positive legacy is still felt today, along with the bad. But then again, the Middle East was always dysfunctional with many warring tribes and if we look back at the origins of Islam...well it wasn't the most peaceful beginning, the Crusades happened for a reason. We also don't know what the Middle East would have been like with the BE, or even India. The sub continent wasn't even a united country before the British arrived.

Might we find a decent White person in the character of Brother Raworth, perhaps?

He certainly gets no high marks for having had his bit on the side with Leena, and may have continued it off-camera even after his wife caught wise. He's no crusader like McLeod, but his love for the children and the mission seem genuine, while he seems not comfortable with the Brits (at least, that's how Craig Parkinson and/or Anand &Tucker are playing him). And, he stood up to Whelan.

Right now Indian Summers (for which I commend the brave BBC, it helps a lot to trace strife back to root causes) is 15 years away from this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/partition1947_01.shtml

Summary of the pressures building here (the Oscar-winning film Gandhi shows how Gandhi used economic pressure on the UK textile industry in reverse):

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue47/articles/a03.htm

The reality of British imperial policy was much different than the theory of "The Just Rule." The economy of India was made subject to the needs of the British economy. For example, Indian roads and railway were developed so that raw materials needed by British factories could be more easily taken from the country and so that expensive finished goods from England could be conveniently distributed.

Wealth was systematically drained from India through confiscatory taxes and economic subjugation. British taxes forced peasants to borrow money at high interest rates from money lenders and landlords, virtually enslaving families for generations. Industry was discouraged by Britain's policy of one-way free trade. Europeans were favored for all government jobs.

The British maintained their power by pitting Hindu against Moslem in a policy called "divide and rule." This policy exacerbated tensions between the religious factions in India and contributed to decades of communal strife, countless deaths and the eventual partition of India into two separate countries, India and Pakistan.

Every one of those consequences you have mentioned is down to intrinsic conflicts to local ethnic/cultural/religious/internecine factors. None of them is the fault of the withdrawing colonial powers.European colonialism provided the only fleeting order that such places had ever known, once that cork was pulled back out of the bottle, they simply reverted and took back up where they left off.

Like black people in America and slavery, they can't keep milking long-departed colonialism for their own shyt forever.

Very interesting that you bring this up. I have often said that many of the problems that we see in the world today come from the European powers waiting until the last possible moment and then leaving behind a big mess. I am pretty sure that had WW2 not been so expensive and cut so deeply in to the treasuries of many european countries they may have stayed on for much longer.

People make a huge deal out of slavery in the US and they often point out how the practice was stopped in Europe proper longer before the US but that isn't exactly accurate and it doesn't take in to account the colonies governed by the European powers and the treatment of the locals which was almost as bad as slavery.

I am not saying that slavery here in US was ok I am saying that somehow the narrative has turned in to the it is the US that caused all of these problems and never seems to point out that colonial rule left a big scar on much of the world. So it often bugs me when I see Europeans especially Brits acting with some huge moral outrage.