Mysteries at the Museum

Well, it is readily apparent that no one is listening to any of the comments presented with respect to the background noise.

Although the program has some redeeming qualities, the music/noise in the background overshadows the dialog.

Question: Is anyone listening???

I'm sorry, What did you say?

It's a wonderful program. Don Wildman makes for such a compelling and engaging host. The stories are wonderful to learn about, and the reenactments are entertaining to watch. The series delves deeper into stories from history that have either been forgotten or are lesser known. The stories most often told are about historical events that were not as well heard about or significantly well documented as others, often telling the tales of people who worked in the background of major events to reach an end to an event that took place. The stories told are always based on objects currently located at museums all around the world, giving the stories behind why some more obscure or unusual objects would find themselves at a museum in the first place. For example, one story was told about a celebrities car crash and the mysterious circumstances behind it , based off a piece of wreckage from that crash that's in a museum on display. The series also takes on stories of personal conflicts and events that individual people have experienced, as well as even occasionally tackling supernatural and strange events that took place. It tells these stories through reenactments that Don narrates beautifully. This is a show that really has something for everyone. There are even special episodes that will specifically tackles events like Amelia Earhart's disappearance and the origins of Dracula among other special episodes. This is a great show for any history buff or even casual viewer looking for something that is both informational and entertaining.

I love this show, but as others have stated, one of its biggest flaws is how repetitive it is. From the way they describe the objects, to the adjectives used to describe the "sinister" plots or "daring" plans, to the way they film dramatizations of events.

But my BIGGEST problem with the show is that 90% of the time the artifact shown has NOTHING to do with the story told other than being the same object. For example, the story might be about a treasure found at sea, but the artefact will be some random coin in a currency museum that wasn't in that treasure and wasn't even involved at all. It's just a coin similar to what was found. I just finished watching the episode about wine bottles etched with the president's initials using a dentists drill. But the artifact that they use was some random dentist drill from some museum that has never had anything to do with the story. Like this would be interesting if it was the actual drill used, but instead it's just some random drill that happens to be similar to the one used. The show is called "Mysteries at the Museum", not "Mysteries Told with Random Objects at the Museum"

My dream is to have a job in one of my summary's listed professions. As you can probably tell, I freaking love history. I love everything about it, and what seems to make the present even more closely tied to the past are the artifacts: The clothing, the pieces of wreckage, the bullets, the bones, the letters, manuscripts, paraphernalia... All preserved so that we all may hold a physical remnant of what has occurred before us so that we may study it and perhaps learn from it, or as the show loves to say, "to serve as a reminder..."

That all being said, this show does have a few tiny bumps that I frown at: The one that I find a little grating is the fact that the show sometimes posits a useless question to the audience before commercial break on the possible outcome of some life or death situation in history, when many of us know what happened: I'm not sure if this segment occurred (I haven't seen every episode) but an example that would suffice in paralleling this phenomenon would be Reagan's armored car. He got shot in the chest by a stray bullet that ricocheted off the bullet-proof car from would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. Most of us who have dabbled in American history, even a quick run-through of the presidents would know that he survived the assassination attempt and was discharged from the hospital after having the bullet removed. But the show, after setting the scene of what was to occur, would ask the audience something like "Will Reagan successfully pull through, or will this assassin accomplish his mission?", or whatever.

These questions at times do help propel the intrigue but for us who know what has already happened, they're kind of moot. But hey, maybe that's a sign that we're more knowledgeable than we realize, ha.

Overall this is a good show to watch late at night. When they have mini- marathons of three, four, five episodes back-to-back-to-back it makes for an entertaining evening. And the experts that are called to showcase the artifacts know their stuff. I recommend this show for any and all American history fanatics, or just a general history fanatic, like me.

This is definitely my favorite show by far, and has been for years. I seriously hope they never end this show (otherwise I probably wouldn't even watch the Travel Channel), and hope they keep coming up with great stories.