Why 'Gold Rush' keeps me up at night.
It's 5:40am, and I'm typing into the old blog. Not because of my shitty IT job, which got me up before 5, or because something important is happening elsewhere in the world. No, I'm typing here and now because the Discovery Channel series 'Gold Rush' bugs me.
I'm not a PowerPoint kinda guy, but here are the bullet points:
It's 5:40am, and I'm typing into the old blog. Not because of my shitty IT job, which got me up before 5, or because something important is happening elsewhere in the world. No, I'm typing here and now because the Discovery Channel series 'Gold Rush' bugs me.
I'm not a PowerPoint kinda guy, but here are the bullet points:
- No exploration was done. As I probably typed about quite a bit in the mid-2000s, I've invested in numerous gold and silver mining stocks. In general they paid off well, but win or lose these companies had one thing in common: they all did a shitload of exploration before one ton of dirt or rock was turned over. 1 to 5 YEARS of drilling is not unusual before a serious mining project is taken to production; the Gold Rush crew did none of this up front, and then only halfway through the second season when they finally discovered that it would be a good idea. There's a lot of prayer shown at critical times on this show, and that's fine, up to the point where you expect God to find the gold for you. That plan left a lot of dead people around the Yukon and the American West back in the day.
- Harness, the guy who in most respects is the tech geek of this sad crew, is derided, shunned and eventually outcast. Whatever his faults (anti-social, less than 100% attendance which many on the show were guilty of) he was the guy who kept it going. Sometimes people like that (like me, in the wee hours here and now) aren't the suck-up team player you want them to be. He took a little time off in mid-season to get laid, and you're on him for that? Tough shit. I know I would not have thought of that reverse flotation-tank mud filter thing that Harness built in season 2 to keep the wash plant going. Good luck getting another competent guy who will put up with the BS next year.
- The general discontinuity of the show. As a documentary product, Gold Rush sucks. Little to no background on people and events... the boys need to put in a new road over a drainage area... BAM, there's a bunch of giant culvert pipe on hand; what?! The kid with the giant nose has to drive to town to get a relay or battery or something, yet at random moments these guys have a flatbed semi full of stuff you can't get at f*cking Home Depot. And what's up with that weird color balance that makes every non-brown, non-grey color 'pop out', like it's a laundry detergent ad or something? Fortunately, it's presented strictly as entertainment. It is, right? I mean, nobody can take this shit seriously enough to sit and type about it in the middle of the night... eh, never mind.
