Expedition Unknown

The production isn't quite as good as Cities of the Underworld but I still thoroughly enjoy this show. I've seen all the Cities of the Underworld episodes a few times so Expedition Unknown has replaced it on my DVR list as my Sunday morning coffee drinking show. Josh Gates being an actual Archaeologist makes it better for me as well. He really does have the best job in the world. He hasn't completely replaced my man crush on Don Wildman (I still watch Mysteries at the Museum) but it's close. Great show, and if the producers read this I am available to be an assistant (though my wife may not let me travel the historical world and leave her at home...she already nixed me volunteering for VetPaw, an organization for combat vets that fight poachers in Africa). Slight tangent there but yeah definitely a show worth a watch.

Do you remember when you were a kid and you saw Goonies or read about pirate treasure and you instantly started digging a hole in your yard? Well that magic is still alive in this show. Josh Gates is a great host and takes us on voyages to other lands and remote locations steeped in history. Sometimes it is chasing treasure and other times it is chasing a legend but it is always entertaining imho and a 'safe' enough show that I let my 6 year old watch it. After the first episode we watched together, she immediately started dragging me off the couch to go look for treasure at the creek behind the house (there is a vine hanging over that part and bamboo that makes it look more jungle like lol). She now has a metal detector that we go hunting with on the weekends and has even buried an arrowhead she found so that "Josh Gates can come here and find it". Very inspiring and hard to find that kind of magical adventure show. Sure, it can be formulaic and sometimes things are not found or the dig is still in progress but the show often updates when things are discovered. Please keep up the good work, Mr. Gates and thank you for creating another generation of adventurer :)

I understand some of the lower ratings and their critiques. You get an appetite for answers and actually finding something significant and then....well I guess we'll never really know. Still....the show takes you to places and people that you may otherwise never encounter. It takes the time to provide cultural background and often rich historical information. My 13 yr old daughter loves learning from this show.....and most adults don't know much more than she does about many of the things covered in it. So it certainly isn't a waste of most peoples time. It's much more intellectually minded than most crap on TV today. Ya wanna tune out and watch reruns of Sienfield instead? Josh does well conveying facts while being entertaining. In this show, I think it keeps peoples attention to actually listen to the 'lesson'. Now I cannot say the same for his show 'Destination Truth' which is so very UNlike Expedition Unknown in every way. Don't even try going there. I will always look forward to EU though. To quell above 'the never find anything' complaints....it seems that, in this season at least, they do. We just saw a reconstruction of what 'may' be Cleopatra. An overall fascinating show with many learning opportunities. I much more enjoy Gates in this role than as ghosty guy selling tours of the local haunted house.

I first started watching this show at the start of the pandemic and the episode I first watched was season 6 episode 4, Scotlands Lost Gold!! After that I was immediately hooked, I watched every episode ever and I feel like I learned a lot more about History, Mythology, FBI cases, urban myths, etc than I ever learned in high school!! I love how Josh adds jokes and humor to his shows while still teaching viewers!!!

Gates must be one of the more personable hosts on TV today. The premise is basically the same as his former show Destination Truth on SyFy; insofar as as with Destination Truth the show starts with some spurious rumour and homemade 'newspaper article' relating to some 'lost' artefact or place (as opposed to a mythical creature in DT) followed by Gates heading off around the globe in search of the artefact or place, followed closely by Gate's goofing around while he gets down on the the more serious track of the legends, which he then hunts down in the most annoyingly melodramatic ways possible.

All in all while the content is hokum in the extreme, overly melodramatic in parts, as a travelogue to some pretty interesting places conducted by an intelligent, well travelled, funny and entertaining host.