Gold Rush

Love the show and the information I pick up along the way is nice. Tony has his family crew together as a side gig for tv, so he doesn't try too hard. His real outfit is not part of the show. Smart guy. Rick Ness crew is entertaining to watch, Karla is a rock star. Parker is the star and it's fun seeing his empire continue to build and we can actually see a lot of gold at the weigh ins. Fred Lewis... great guy, liked him on Parker's Trail spin-off. Can't stand watching his crew, especially knowing it's taking air time away from Rick mostly, but everyone is getting cut to work him in. It's boring and forced and the post-military angle is really forced. Can his crew, put him with Rick for extra help. Bring back the Dakota boys.

The "5" is for the part of the show illustrating the gold mining.

If I was grading on the amateur acting of the Hoffman and Schnabel crews, it would be a fat zero.

I do enjoy the Beets portions without criticism - honest workers, no drama.

Schnabel - petulant spoiled brat, perpetual smirk on his face, an idiot that only looks successful due to the hard work of his employee - of which he is a real prick to every episode. What a goof!

Shows like this has an audience not for the fake drama, but just to watch the machines working, illustrate repairs and improvisation, and the final product. It doesn't need anything else! Just like "Ax Men", another great show that the producers ruined by the fake drama, this series is also going to eventually fail, if they keep up with the soap opera scripts.

EDIT/ADDED:

I've just finished watching S08 ep 20, and have to amend my review.

Todd and crew are pathetic, portray themselves as bumblers that have traveled North and South America mining for gold, and obviously don't have a clue about mining, nor understand the machines they use in the show. I see them as a bunch of aimless idiots!

Tony Beets has joined in the soap opera scripts, it seems - behaving like a greedy a-hole that resents anyone else operating a mine to the point of sabotaging others' operations?! Yes, what he does, obstructing the lawful movement and development of another business is criminal, *and if this was real acts of interference* he would be arrested and lose all the rights to his claims - forbidden from mining, himself...but it's fake, so he continues to just behave like a goof for the cameras.

Parker is still a tyrant brat that continues with his own fake crisis, fake feud with Beets, and fake drama.

*All these lands are owned by the State/Province/country, and mining rights/prospecting rights are permitted by the grace of these government jurisdictions*. All the show characters are only temporary guests of the land.

With contempt toward the show producers, that have lost focus on the gold mining, I've reduced the five-stars to a one...because zeroes aren't permitted.

This show is starting to bore the hell out of me!

Feeling slightly stupid to be a sucker for this show. Not much new in the 5th season, but still like the elements of people struggling, being assholes, taking senseless stupid chances and so on. How much is real and how much is played or scripted, I don't know, but seems real enough for me to not turn the program off.

From the first season the Hoffman crew has been running on too small budgets and knowledge, I don't know if effort, luck or help from the TV- production has made them still succeed sometimes. Parker is developing a A-class asshole attitude, if some of this is real it is interesting to ponder why - ambition, expectations, camera fever, narcissism or something else?

What makes me believe in the show is that too much operation, equipment and costs are involved for it all to be fake. One annoying fake element of this show is the drama build-ups and the speaker voice - "If they can't manage to ... this will be the end of the season!". Showing more of what actually happens including the boring stuff, and scrap the forced drama would have made the show better.

I found season 1 interesting then it became more obvious it's aim was to become reality tv over documentary style. Which is fine, but too much utter rubbish happened, saying there's 8 in the USA then they stumble on the exact part down the road, I get it's mining country but come on.

The narrator is an imbecile, every day every slight issue will ruin their whole season, destroy the machine or something overly dramatic, fixation on saying there's 1000km distance between mines, it just added nothing and really just made it a bit cringe.

But the biggest problem so far is Todd, I hate to use this word, but the guy is utterly retarded, he has a team of pretty normal, intelligent good guys with real good skills, he can't lead, doesn't listen and has the weirdest conversations ever, I get he owns part of the show and he's made money but the guy is so dumb it's unreal and I can't understand how in the real world anyone would follow this weirdo.

He shouted at Dave about getting dirt, when Dave explained it was frozen Todd just got angry like it's Dave's fault , I didn't like Dorsey but in episode one where the winch snapped and he said someone could've died, Todd shouted at him , honestly the guy is so dumb, he says I believe.... Followed by ridiculous statements based on nothing, saying there 500 ounces here, or when the golds in front of him saying there's 12 ounces when they've counted 6 and there's literally flakes left! His dads just as thick and dangerous encouraging him, I get the dads old but his disregard for safety is ludicrous.

Last bit on Todd , I know he loads, which is the easiest job, how does he not understand he's in charge and it's his dig makes no decisions, blames everyone else, does literally the least work and moans at everyone else! I literally hate him, he's so lazy, so incredibly dumb, the other guys, if they had a good leader they'd have been loaded at both mines! Yet the follow this colossal tit.

Lastly in between series when they say they're skint they somehow get operations or new machines, it kinda ruins the narrative that they're desperate like they keep saying. They say they are going home with no profit etc, yet come back? Poorly written.

I with no doubt say that this is a good TV show. Maybe the story-line isn't nothing new to people but it's really interesting to watch and I completed the whole season in just two evenings. The camera crew had done a really great job. The filming was creative and I always like to think how it is for them.

This TV show actually gave me a few life lessons and I bet that to the crew - even more. Things don't go always the way you want them to go. In this case they faced like tons of problems but they're spirit was unbreakable and the mechanic - amazing. Some may say that Todd's leader skills are poor and that they make some silly rookie mistakes. But, people, don't forget that they are kinda desperate in the situation they are and overall just six "average Joe's" When I watched the last episode I saw that they have really fell in love with gold mining and they wont stop. I think that this adventure has changed their lives. And that is what I love the most about this series - making the dream come true from scratch, facing problems and solving them, filming and simply just seeing the gold.

After watching the last episode I had only one thought stuck in my mind - When is the second season on air?