Gold Rush TV show

[Bijou Drains]

Anyone seen this? I like it. It's on Discovery. It's about a bunch of guys who lose their jobs and decide to mine for gold in SE Alaska - the panhandle. They don't know much about mining so it's kind of funny. They stumble around for a while and eventually hire a guy who knows a lot more to help them out. They have only shown 2 episodes so far, the rest start this Friday night. It's sort of like the Deadliest Catch if the guys on the boats did not know how to fish.

[Bijou Drains]

I should add this is all above ground mining. There are no tunnels, shafts, etc. It's strip mining on a very small scale.

[Turek]

I watched one episode.

1) The guys are clueless. This, of course, leads to conflict.
2) They come within inches of destroying an integral piece of machinery. This, of course, leads to conflict.
3) There's some old geezer who thinks he knows what he's doing, and totally goes off on his own in some random manner basically digging holes wherever he gets the hunch there is gold. This, of course, leads to conflict.
4) Some of them have their kids with them ... in bear territory. This, of course, leads to conflict.
5) They don't have a plan, and whatever plan they do have, they don't follow (see geezer above). This, of course, leads to conflict.

It just seemed like another crappy show where people who don't get along try to accomplish some meaningless task, all the while forced drama ensues. I don't plan on watching another episode.

[Bijou Drains]

There is another guy right near them who has made a lot of money by finding gold so they should do OK if they get their act together.

[Pine Fresh Scent]

It's being billed as the highest rated original series on cable right now. I caught it tonight and ended up watching three episodes in a row. There's a lot of buffoonery on display - I cringed when they all went bear hunting at night with an assault rifle and pistols. They also shot into the brush from the middle of a camp with small kids running around (who leave boxes of crackers out that attract the damn bears to begin with!) I don't want to see anyone get hurt or sick (SPOILER - too late), but I'd also like them to at least show some recognition of how reckless some of their decisions are. I can find something to like in all of the miners, except for the leader's father. He's stubborn, clueless and whiny. I don't understand why his son can't rein him in like he does the rest of his crew. I guess going broke digging for gold in the 80s gives him immunity.

Ultimately I think the show's going to be a winner. It's a good mix of "what not to do" coupled with "how it's done" as shown by the their 90 year old neighbor and his grandson. Did anyone else laugh at the grandson's reaction to the new guys when he went to their camp to help them with their equipment? Here's a screen cap: . The leader said he was embarrassed to take advice from a 15 year old kid, but that "kid" showed more maturity and level headedness than the new crew's boss will ever have, IMO.

Even if they don't find any gold, I bet they'll see good money from the Discovery Channel. I suspect they all knew this going in. Like I said, as long as their families don't suffer from their husbands' mistakes, I'll probably keep tuning in.

[aruvqan]

I watch the commercial and am horrified, and have absolutely no desire to watch it.

Just that geezer screetching 'No guts, no glory' is nasty.

And what the fuck .... they are at risk of having their homes foreclosed and they wander off to pan for gold? Get a fucking job and pay the damned mortgage for Ghu's sake.

If mrAru decided to go off and pan for gold to pay the bills, he would be divorced pretty damned fast.

[Turek]

Originally Posted by aruvqan

And what the fuck .... they are at risk of having their homes foreclosed and they wander off to pan for gold? Get a fucking job and pay the damned mortgage for Ghu's sake.

This, of couse, leads to conflict.

[Bijou Drains]

They have everything working and found gold. But it appears they will have more issues next week.

[Pine Fresh Scent]

From tonight's show:

Everyone: "All right, after a week of repairs we finally got all the machinery working!"

***5 minutes later***

Son: "Crap! The generator's spewing oil, shut everything down!"

Father: (AKA the Old Man Who Went Broke Mining Gold in the 80s): "What in tarnation's a goin' on around hurr?"

Mechanic to OMWWBMGit80's: "Yeah, that O ring you replaced on the generator? It slipped off because you didn't seat it right"

OMWWBMGit80s: "...whurr's my sunglasses?"

No wonder that other guy

SPOILER:

said "Screw it, I'm going to work on a salmon boat."

I really hope they see some of the money from this show, 'cause I'm not very sure they're goning to make any money from gold this season. Another entertaining episode, though.

[TriPolar]

Watched that tonight. Man! I hope those guys hit something big. But gold fever is a contagious and devastating disease.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

Watched that tonight. Man! I hope those guys hit something big. But gold fever is a contagious and devastating disease.

I have a friend who prospects for gold and gemstones as a sideline, his hobby basically pays for itself - whatever the costs of materials for melting down the gold and silver and casting the settings, and whatever it is he uses to cut and polish the gems, and the travel, food, camping and prospecting fees for the trips [and probably a few of the pieces he makes go to various people as birthday and christmas presents]

He says that there is no real way that he would be able to make a living unless he managed to find a serious gold vein somewhere that he could actually lay a claim. He normally goes to you-mine-it sorts of places, and parks that allow prospecting [there used to be a tv show about treasures that showed one of the campgrounds that he goes amethyst hunting at]

I want to vacation in Herkimer for the 'diamonds' [double terminator quartz crystals] and Nevada at the Peacock mines for opals sometime =)

[Fear Itself]

For those who don't want to watch until the end, John Schnabel, the neighbor with the claim next to them, let the cat out of the bag about how much gold they found:

SPOILER:

John Schnabel, a Porcupine miner for 25 years, said he heard the Hoffmans’ crew found 16 ounces of gold, or about $20,000 worth.

"They were more interested in making a movie than they were in finding gold," Schnabel said. "They didn’t get their machinery going until afternoon and sometimes not until evening. They had cameras going all over the place."

[Thunder38843]

I usually don't comment on things of this nature, but due to a lack of common sense by all the so-called miners I just can't help myself.
I don't know one thing about mining, but I do know the outdoors. On one episode when a bear was in camp, the old man (I call him Papa Smurf) saw the bear and was going to scare it off. He pulled a .25 semi auto pistol and shot at the bear. Damn.... a .25? That's not enough firepower against a rabbit much less a bear!

Also, Papa Smurfs son is an arrogant bastard who thinks he is Billy badass. Barking orders to the others when he is sitting on his fat ass doing nothing. I recall he told "Dorsey" to get out of the cabin or he would put him out. I think he would be almost too lazy to put anyone out if he could. Dude, get rid of the ZZ Top wannabe goatee, it went out years ago.

I am still in awe of how Papa Smurf's son came into existence.. From the sound of Papa Smurf's voice, he was castrated along time ago, so how did he make a kid???

I hope they do strike it rich. I try my best to wish everyone with good luck. But from what I see the only good luck for the viewers is that they strike it rich and end the show.....LOL

Just my 2 cents worth.

Everyone take care!

[Atrael]

I watched one episode, and part of another, and that was enough for me. Mostly because of the general level of idiocy shown. I mean...look across the river...guy over there has been doing this like 70 years, has a set up at least similar to yours, and he and his grandson make enough to just barely get by. You have what, like 8 people on your crew, plus their families? Way too much overhead for that level of operation. The enitre operation is doomed to failure. Which I would still maybe watch, except these idiots then proceeded to bring their entire families up to the working strip mine. Which is reckless to the point of criminal in my opinion. Way too many small children running around a location with dangerous equipment. No way this ends well for anyone.

[Chimera]

Yup. Morons.

Can't get their equipment working, wasting days and weeks (I'd be panning while waiting around. Not these guys). And the worst, mining wise: Just digging up random dirt and expecting it to be full of gold. Hello? That land has been over several times by many groups of miners. All you're picking up is the shit they didn't catch!

Yup, too interested in making a TV show and utterly convinced they'll just stumble into loads of gold with no effort.

Just once I would have liked to see that neighbor walk over, on camera, and call them out on the buffoonery and failure.

[akwally1]

Originally Posted by Atrael

I mean...look across the river...guy over there has been doing this like 70 years, has a set up at least similar to yours, and he and his grandson make enough to just barely get by.

Just for clarification on this point, John Schnabel has made a lot of money off of his mining over the years, and I mean a lot. I grew up in Haines and he was easily the richest man in town back then. Mining is really more of a hobby for him at this point, certainly not a necessary income.

In fact, my dad would go up to Haines in the summers as recently as 3 years ago and work with John on his mine and John always paid him in gold nuggets at the end of the summer, so he's still pulling quite a bit of gold out of there. (In fact, my wife has one of those nuggets that dad gave her when she finished her Master's degree.)

So there is gold in the area, but yeah, I think these guys are too incompetent to actually find enough to make it worth their while.


Mark

[Bijou Drains]

I read somewhere that these guys contacted a TV producer before they went up there , I wonder how much money they get from TV.

spoiler:

SPOILER:

they are going back this summer to do more mining so they still have hope of making more money

[Bijou Drains]

It turns out their plant was so bad they were losing 90% of the gold. And the land owner sent a guy to make sure they are doing it right. The owner get 20% of what they find.

[Max Torque]

I'm watching it, but not because I like anyone on the show. It's more of a "I wanna see the Failure of the Week" thing.

Everyone on the show appears to me to be lazy as hell, like they expected to just saunter on over and start picking nuggets up off the ground. There's a whole lot of standing around and "meetings" and wasted time. If they'd walk into the stream and start panning, they'd probably have covered their expenses by now, but no, they'd rather take turns frowning at the machinery than put in an 8-hour day.

And they drag everyone around them down with them. "Waaaa waaaa, sister, can I borrow $40 grand so I can play prospector for another month?" What a douche. And by the looks of things, they're going to be real assholes to the guy the claim holder sent to keep an eye on the operation, even though he, you know, has actual experience and appears to have actually made money off prospecting for gold at one time....yeah, wouldn't want a guy like that around, we might actually succeed.

It's like the opposite of Deadliest Catch, which shows people with actual competence.

Hey, maybe there'll be a "Gold Rush" video game just like the "Deadliest Catch" video games! The object will be watching the sun rise and set each day and walking around talking to people in hardhats while no one actually does anything and your "available cash" ticks down to zero. And somewhere in there is a "Punch Dorsey" minigame.

[Bijou Drains]

It was pretty funny how bad their wash plant was. You would think they would have called in the mining expert at the start of construction, not 3 months later.

I wonder if the $25k from the sister was considered a loan or an investment? I assume it was a loan.

[Turble]

I watched an episode of this a week or so ago. They were cleaning out all the machinery to gather up the gold. After the clean out, the whole group was gathered around a campfire, waiting for the old guy, who was alone in a tent, to weigh the gold they had found.

Ummm ... can anybody explain why he was alone with all of their gold?

[Bijou Drains]

I guess they trust the old guy not to rip off any gold. Or maybe he wasn't really alone , they just said that to make the show look better.

[Chimera]

Because the old guy, in addition to being completely worthless as a prospector, is an asshole who would probably throw a temper tantrum if someone else watched him.

[stanger]

This show really amazes me. I know very little about the type of gold mining they are doing, but I know that a lot has been written on the subject, and there is probably tons of information on how to build good working equipment, but these guys don't seem to have checked out any of that. They have had a few knowledgable people come check them out, but it was always after a month or so after they got there.

I don't understand why it took them so long to get set up. Most of the equipment was already built, so all they had to do was set it up and start working out all the little problems. Seems like it was several weeks before they even had the equipment assembled together. Considering how they make sucjh a big deal about how short their season will last before winter, and how much money they are burning through each day, I don't understand why camp set up took so long. One guy was building his house, like, about 5 weeks or more after they got there?

I agree with many of the previous posts - they must spend a lot of time doing nothing but wishing and hoping and not doing actual work. A lot of the footage shown is of an empty work site. You would think these guys would be there sun up to sun down, and even later if they have the lighting. Do they think they are going to get rich working a couple of hours a day? They had buckets of black sand sitting there that they figured was full of gold, but their new gold-sifting machine wouldn't work for them. Were they afraid to pan it by hand and get their hands dirty?

And the deal with the families is ridiculous. They are concerned about their money situation, and here they have the added expense and distraction of their families there. One good thing about having the kids there - if a bear shows up, you don't have to worry about being far from a gun, just as long as you can out run the slowest child.

I knew the show was going to be a mess when they showed them all gathered together in camp the first day and they were all totin' guns around like they were expecting a mass bear attack.

[lieu]

Originally Posted by Chimera

Yup. Morons.

I'm thinkin' Fucknuggets works particularly well here.

Originally Posted by Turek

This, of couse, leads to conflict.

What the hell, did an entire generation miss Paint Your Wagon?

[dolphinboy]

I've been watching it since it premiered because I am genuinely interested in mining gold as a hobby (I live in Montana). But these guys appear to be hopeless amateurs.

The premise for the show seems flawed since why would all of these people risk everything on finding gold? Yes, gold is at an all time high, but what happens if they strike out? It seems that they poured a lot of money into the operation in hopes of getting rich, but they really didn't have a good plan or appropriate expertise. Perhaps this is false drama that was created to make it look riskier than it really is, but running out of money before the summer season is over seems to point to an inadequate funding source. They should have known what their daily operating costs were going to be going in.

It's not like they haven't found any gold... but I don't see why some of them moved their families up there since that didn't really help. Whether they manage to get rich, break even, or lose their shirts it's fun to watch them fumble around trying to fix things with very little knowledge of how to do it in the first place.

They must be getting funding from the Discovery Channel, and presumable that paid for a lot of upfront costs, but all this drama and not much gold makes for a good soap opera but not a compelling show about gold mining in Alaska.

[Bijou Drains]

They are getting money from TV but we don't know how much. It's possible they did not know how much either because the show probably was not picked up until after they were done mining. If no network bought the show they could have ended up with no cash from TV.

[Chimera]

This is telling;

http://www.goldminingrealityshow.com/

“The 72 hour deadline was about 3-4 weeks of filming. It dragged on for weeks. This was a plot for an episode that was made up by the screenwriters and producers that really didn’t sit well with Todd Hoffman. He was not interested at all in playing along with story lines that were developed by the production team. Actually Todd has been trying to fire Raw Television since the day they secured the deal with the network. There was an extremely tenuous relationship that existed between Todd and Raw during the filming because Todd had actually written executive producing rights in to his contract with Raw. Unfortunately in the negotiations with Discovery Channel he was not given production rights as most participants do not even get the opportunity to see the footage before the show airs let alone make any decisions about how a person is portrayed (as with me). Todd told me many times that even though Discovery did not give him producing credits he was able to review the cuts that were sent to Discovery for final editing. I never believed that although he spent many late nights at the production house having meetings about something? Everyone knew these themes as we waded patiently through each episode but the production could not seem to get Todd on board with their story lines. Many plots I internalized and it actually became an actuality for me because I felt I could not really act. I had to believe the lines that they were feeding me to be able to say them without sounding scripted. The 72 hours became a week which was going on a month and then I felt compelled to actually leave the mine to fulfill the prophecy that I spoke into existence in the hours of interviews about the deadline. Here is where truth and fiction meet in a world called Reality TV."

and

"They were never going to get any considerable amount of gold and I knew it. Actually I thought at that point that the show was going to get cut. We were supposed to be at episode 4 (that way he didn’t have to pay me the money he owed me at the time.) Oh not because he didn’t have any money, he made a grip of money from Discovery Channel so the Hoffman’s were not hurting. Jack also sold his airplane because of his morphine prescription for back pain which keeps him from flying anymore (or driving heavy machinery?)"

[Bijou Drains]

I guess Dorsey was so mad he started up his own blog to tell his side of the story. I cracked up when he went to the cops about his fight , it appeared the cops did nothing about it.

[Chimera]

The one question being asked repeatedly on his blog and totally ignored is why the fight apparently happened on the 7th, but they were shown flying full speed to the police station on the 10th, three full days later, with camera crews in tow. The Police declined to allow the camera crews access to the police station and several other areas to film.

They probably figured it was a publicity stunt, they had no solid evidence of a crime, conflicting reports and it was too much of a hassle to take any of it seriously.

[Ibanez]

I had hopes for the show when it started. But it's turning out to become one big cluster fuck of idiots.

Why would they want to bring their young boys up there ? Bear bait ? Something for heavy equipment to run over ?

The first episode when they left Oregon on their way up to Alaska the filming stopped at the Canadian border it would appear and 3-4 days later of driving poof they're in Alaska, what gives ?

[Bijou Drains]

Having the families there never made sense, it just drove up their costs. Seems like it would be better for the wives to stay in Oregon and get jobs to help pay the bills.

[Bijou Drains]

They are finally getting gold now, but of course they are still not happy about the expert telling them what to do. The expert was sent in by the claim owner. There are only 2 more episodes left.

[Finagle]

I dunno. The show is definitely depicting them as disorganized amateurs, but that's not really reflected by what I'm seeing. These guys did their homework -- they figured out what was needed for mining -- shaker, pumps, heavy machinery, etc..., orchestrated moving it all up to Alaska and got it all assembled and working in a fairly short time for pretty short money, despite having little or no mining experience. That's pretty impressive. On the other hand, their selection of personnel leaves something to be desired. Hiring a chief mechanic with a bad back to do heavy physical labor seems to be a pretty bad idea. And Dorsey was dysfunctional from day one.

As for bringing the families -- I don't see why that's dramatically more expensive than leaving them home -- they have to be fed and housed in either place.

Biggest problem with them is that they seem terribly unscientific about the actual gold hunting part. I'd figure they'd be panning samples from all over the property looking for the biggest concentration of gold, but instead they just seemed to pick a random likely spot and start digging to China.

[Bijou Drains]

Right now they are digging where they think there is a lot of gold based on the fact that it's what is called a "glory hole" . They explained why they picked that spot in an early episode. I think it is at the bottom of where a waterfall used to be.

[The twilight zone]

Who are you people? Remember Planet Earth and quality shows like that on Discovery? You actually spend your time watching trash like these rednecks trying to mine for gold? In fact, you've made it the number one show on cable!!! You should be boycotting this kind of Reality Crap!

[Bijou Drains]

Don't worry I am not doing ratings so my viewing does not count.

It's the #1 new show on Friday night which is a long way from #1 overall.

[Bijou Drains]

In case anyone is wondering they ended up with about $20k worth of gold, but most of that they found in the last few days before they had to shut down due to snow. They are going back this summer.

[Morgenstern]

I'd have to nominate this show, along with Storage Wars, as the most ridiculous televised entertainment since Geraldo opened his secret vault on prime time.

[The Second Stone]

Geezer does a great Walter Brennan impression.

[Bijou Drains]

They cannot go back to Alaska this year so they are hoping to get a claim in Yukon of Canada. The guy who helped them, Dakota Fred, wants to mine their spot in Alaska on his own. Since Fred knows the land owner he will get the claim. If they don't get the Yukon claim then they are out of the gold mining business.

[Jeep's Phoenix]

I've enjoyed the commentary provided by The Soup regarding the glory hole.

[clarkstar]

Originally Posted by Jeep's Phoenix

I've enjoyed the commentary provided by The Soup regarding the glory hole.

yeah wth it was disturbing to hear the voiceover keep talking a bout the gloryhole.

in my opinion, this show was all about getting famous. it took them months before they were actually doing any major digging, and then they weren't doing anything with what they dug up. like they were hoping to find some big million dollar nugget instead of actually sifting through the dirt for the specks. todd came off as really lazy and a horrible personnel manager

[Pathfinder]

Originally Posted by Turek

I watched one episode.

1) The guys are clueless. This, of course, leads to conflict.
2) They come within inches of destroying an integral piece of machinery. This, of course, leads to conflict.
3) There's some old geezer who thinks he knows what he's doing, and totally goes off on his own in some random manner basically digging holes wherever he gets the hunch there is gold. This, of course, leads to conflict.
4) Some of them have their kids with them ... in bear territory. This, of course, leads to conflict.
5) They don't have a plan, and whatever plan they do have, they don't follow (see geezer above). This, of course, leads to conflict.

It just seemed like another crappy show where people who don't get along try to accomplish some meaningless task, all the while forced drama ensues. I don't plan on watching another episode.

Yes...stupid a$$es had to go and shoot that bear when they basically lured him into their camp. Why do they have to have all these little kids wandering around there anyway...aren't they supposed to be like working and not baby sitting..?

Anyway...I was just shocked as HE!! that frikken Todd *forgot* to pay the lease on the claim...how stupid can ya get man...? And then it never occurred to him when Fred called and said there's something we gotta talk about..?

Where are Todd's brains...??????

Dumb as a box of rocks that dude. I hope they do well..but who knows where they'll end up diggin now. lol

[Chimera]

Todd and his father are both morons and assholes. They got people on your own team and people being paid by the show to come in and show them how things are done and instead they shoved their heads even further up their asses and refused to do what they were told.

And what did they come out of it with?

The money the Discovery Channel gave them, of course. And 15 minutes of fame.

But not much in the way of actual gold.

If you dropped those two clowns on top of Pre-Spanish Potosi, I doubt they'd be able to find the Silver.

[TriPolar]

Every time that old man shouts "I know what I'm doing!", he doesn't. The show is entertaining in the sense that a train wreck is. Last year you could tell they were a mob of selfish, disorganized, and somewhat lazy people counting their chickens before they hatched. This year they came back organized and motivated, but not detail oriented enough to take care of the most important factor in any potential success. And when the major snag arose, they reverted to their old ways. Still, I gotta keep watching those train cars piling up.

[Chimera]

Wait, it's a new season? I'd heard last year that the land owner decided not to allow them to come back because he wanted to work it himself. At that time, they were looking for other locations. I guess enough TDC money changed his mind, eh?

Bottom line is that those guys are making their money of TDC, not from the actual mining. As long as they continue to be a ratings grabbing train wreck of FAIL, TDC will keep paying them.

[Bijou Drains]

The land owner sold the land to Dakota Fred. He was the guy helping them last year. They forgot to make a lease payment so Fred was able to cancel their lease to mine. So now they are headed to Canada to see if they can mine there.

[Chimera]

Now that all is hilariously funny. All the people on various forums calling him a claim jumper and a douchebag.

Well, according to the US Government, he is.

"Inspections by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration Aug. 4 to 8 (2011) resulted in a total of 13 citations and two compliance orders against John Schnabel's Big Nugget Mine and the Jim Nail Placer Mine operated by "Dakota" Fred Hurt, according to a website maintained by the agency."

In any event, the Hoffmans had a LEASE. They didn't pay it. Gold mining is white hot due to the price of Gold. Not paying the lease is epic stupidity from people who have already demonstrated that they are Epically Stupid.

I love the comments "just as they were getting close". My ass. They were just flushing rock and playing at being miners.

[Bijou Drains]

There going to mine in Alaska and Canada but they could not get the permit for Canada. They said the permit office was swamped due to the high cost of gold.