Gold Rush, Best ever?

I vote it the best reality show ever, can't wait till one of them hits it big...gotta love the kid, and the crew way north with the old guy and his son with the ridiculous chin music, cut the damn thing, maybe it will bring some deserved luck.
Your opinions?

Hello all ,
This is actually second season of Gold Rush and they have turned it more into a Dealiest Catch type show going back and forth from one claim to another , I do love the show as well . Alaska the final frontier !!!!
Catch the behind the scenes episode , really shows how many of staff and crew involved in putting this together
Benzee

I watch, it's boring...but there's not much else on tv.... I'm glad there gone away from their original spot, now we don't have to listen to the word "Glory Hole" 237 times an episode.
Flying wild Alaska right after is a pretty good show also.

We like it, Dakota Fred is of course the villain, the claim jumping scoundrel.

i ti vo it and then watch it   .way too many commercials.the grandfather is in pretty good shape for being 91 years old.

Of the two, I would choose "Ozzie and Harriet" over "Gold Rush" !! I prefer my version of 'REALITY '!

mayor al


Of the two, I would choose "Ozzie and Harriet" over "Gold Rush" !! I prefer my version of 'REALITY '!

Amen, Al!  Until "Deadliest Catch" most folks didn't even know Alaska was part of the US!  When I would tell people I lived in Alaska, the response was, "Oh, isn't that part of Canada?"  Then there was Sarah Palin's "reality" show.  Right.  Like any woman is going to shoot a caribou with her hair in a French twist, makeup on and lipstick.  Now there is also "Coast Guard Alaska".  I probably will never watch "Gold Rush".  I love Alaska and would go back there to live in a heartbeat.  That's reality.

I watch it and enjoy it, but I do have a couple of observations:
 
1.  It's a good thing the Hoffman crew has the TV money coming in, because I don't think they'll ever make a penny as gold miners.
 
2.  They really play the "saving the family mine" angle to the hilt with Parker.  The "reality" is that his grandpa made his millions in the logging and lumber business (cutting off one of his fingers in the process) and basically started mining as a hobby.  None of the Schnabel's is relying on the money from the Big Nugget Mine to make a living.
 
All in all, more reality than most reality shows.

Hey Mayor Al...I just saw (and dubbed onto dvd disk) a documentary on Ozzie & Harriet on BIO channel...it was filmed several years ago, with a CG epilog at the end mentioning David Nelsons death (2011?)
 

MikeS.
We like it, Dakota Fred is of course the villain, the claim jumping scoundrel.

I like it because I did some Placer mining way back in my youth...
 
Strictly speaking Fred is NOT a "claim jumper"...what he did was BUY the claim...and yes, it WAS a dirty trick by Fred on the Hoffmans to yank the claim out from under them...(real life is not always fair)...
 
"Claim Jumping"...at least here, is somebody squating and working your claim without permission...it can also be when somebody cross files against your claim, saying they located it first. Mining involves doing certain proceedures on the physical property, and also in registering (filing) your claim to document it's location and validity...cross filing is when during this (sometimes long) process another party says they are the party that has located, marked, filed, and "proven color" ... plus you have to do a certain amount of yearly "assessment work" (improvements) to keep your claim, or it might be legally deemed abandoned...
 
What this, and all "reality shows" have in common is EGO and CONFLICT...otherwise it would be a dull as watching Barney reciting the alphabet...
 
Most "reality" shows are semi scripted, and there is a program flow chart...you select a few teams, assign them tasks of various difficulty, you create competition, you promote conflict, you encourage ego's, and you film lots of "personal diary" clips of individuals commenting on things / situations...and this IS following a formula as set forth by the Producers (who are the real "puppet masters" of these kinds of shows)...I call these "fake reality shows"...
 
Gold Rush...is unscripted, but you stiill have unknown mechanical breakdowns, personality clashes, environmental variables,  triumphs and failures...but the cameras and most importantly, the Producers, are merely neutral observers documenting what's unfolding...this to me IS a "true reality show", unlike the "fake reality shows"...
 
To me, the ultimate reality show is COPS (Fox)...totally unscripted...what happens is what you see...of course, what you don't see are the positive contacts with citizens, a routine traffic stop with no incidents as granny gets pulled over, the donut runs, etc ... Cops as a tv program has opened the door to let folks see what cops REALLY do...(something often the topic of speculation)...beyond a 2 minute clip on the 6PM News...and I like that they travel around most the country, so you cab see which areas have the nice, polite, professional cops, and which areas have the hard nose a##hole cops...
 
Cops, in both concept and execution, has raised the bar to new heights...heights  the "Fake Reality Shows" can never come close to (because of their situation scripting)...

lleechef

mayor al


Of the two, I would choose "Ozzie and Harriet" over "Gold Rush" !! I prefer my version of 'REALITY '!

Amen, Al!  Until "Deadliest Catch" most folks didn't even know Alaska was part of the US!  When I would tell people I lived in Alaska, the response was, "Oh, isn't that part of Canada?"  Then there was Sarah Palin's "reality" show.  Right.  Like any woman is going to shoot a caribou with her hair in a French twist, makeup on and lipstick.  Now there is also "Coast Guard Alaska".  I probably will never watch "Gold Rush".  I love Alaska and would go back there to live in a heartbeat.  That's reality.

i hear you. i moved up there in 1980. lived there 6 years and loved it. people thought i was nuts.  i was working in the states when i met my now wife and she wouldn't move up there with me. and the oil field died then. i still talk to my aunt and uncle that live there all the time. it is a fantastic place. i guess thats why so many shows are being filmed there. i mainly worked in prudhoe bay where ice road truckers goes too but did crab some also. even did some gold dredging in bird creek.  never a dull moment in the great state of Alaska. everyone needs to go once.

kenny b, I drove from Anchorage to Prudhoe one summer.  The Haul Road was a piece of cake and the most magnificent drive I've ever done.  Although after Oil Spill Hill it was rather boring, with just Arctic tundra and caribou and the pipeline to look at.  I took my shoes off and waded into the Arctic Ocean, it was July 3rd and it was coooooold!  I've lived in a LOT of places, Alaska is still my favorite.

made the haul road trip one time. prudhoe to anchorage. i worked in a camp that was right on the bay. about 100' out the front door. been in the ocean myself. it was where the ice road started from in winter. everybody thinks its cold and frozen all year. gets 75-80 in the summer. ya, i really liked it. i lived in the spenard area in anchorage. old part of town but very fun. my uncle still bugs me about moving back. he runs a street market 16-20 weekends a year where i could vend. he has about 600 crafters and food venders every weekend. would be really fun. 

I'll give Gold Rush a try on the DVR.
 
Thanks for the tip.
 
Thanks to Discovery, History, Science, FNC & FBC we hardly watch anything, save for 60 Minutes, on Network TV any more.  Even the entertainment shows (e.g., Justified on FX and Boardwalk Empire on HBO) are vastly superior on the "cable channnels".
 
 

I can't imagine life without a DVR...
 
I'm so spoiled by it that I now catch myself when listening to the RADIO that I can't "back it up 30 seconds" to listen to something again...
 
 

I can mine is KAPUT 
 

That is SO last century CK...
 
Remember when you had to get up and walk across the room to change tv channels...???