I was so impressed by this doco that I just sent an email to the production company. The email sums up what I felt (so am providing it as a review as I can't be bothered to retype it into a review format). By the way in Australia this was called "Inside the Titanic" So here is what I said in my email:
I recently watched your doco "Inside the Titanic". I wanted to say thank you for finally providing the information that I've vainly searched for on the Titanic. I've found every documentary that I've seen on the titanic quite frustrating because they always solely focus on the engineering and the facts of how it sank. Naturally that's important information and your doco also provided this info, however so far yours is the only doco I've seen that actually recreated some of the passengers and workers stories. Usually the passengers stories in other docos are very limited or they might only mention 1 or 2 people, and usually the focus is on the crew (as in the captain and seamen). However you had a broad range of stories from the crew, the workers (such as the stokers) and the passengers. Obviously you wouldn't have time to explore everyone's stories but at least you explored some. Even when I went to the Titanic exhibition in New York it focused on the artefacts found, hardly any info re the actual people on board, any info provided about the people was very brief.
Some of the stories you showed of the people were so fascinating I have no idea why on earth the James Cameron movie made up such a ridiculous story when there was plenty of real life fascinating stories to be found. I love Kate Winslet but deplored that movie. For instance he could have easily used the real life story of Bertha Mayne and her lover. All of the other stories you showed are equally fascinating. It was wonderful (though horrible) to see the stories of the workers (stokers?) who must have worked (and unfortunately died) in terrible conditions. Their stories are too often ignored. And of course the crew stories were fascinating too.
Regarding the James Cameron film I'm over filmmakers making movies about a real event then making up the story. If the movie is so far removed from the real story, then they should have the decency to call the movie "Shipwreck" rather than "The Titanic".
Of course having said this I realise that it's not possible to be completely accurate, no doubt even with your own doco you couldn't always be sure exactly what happened to each passenger so you would have to had to have used some artistic license in recreating the events. That's unavoidable and therefore understandable. I just dislike when filmmakers decide to make up some absolutely huge lie (like a fictitious love story between passengers that never existed in the case of James Cameron's movie), and in the case of the real Titanic there were plenty of fascinating real stories that could have been used. I also think it was crazy he only focused on one story when he could have used several, Jack Thayer's story, Elizabeth's etc.
I have just watched Julian Fellowes Titanic mini series which I thought was far, far more enjoyable than James Cameron's movie, partly because it focused on more than one passengers story, but I've no doubt that probably a lot of that is highly fictitious too.
Anyway thank you for making something that has finally satisfied my curiosity as to the passengers stories.