Alaska : La ruée vers l'or

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.

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.

Used to love Goldrush but the last few years it has become repetitive and it hasn't helped bringing the Lewis crew along. I think Frew would be better off in his own 6 part show, a little less of the scripted stuff and it gets a bit tedious and forced them mentioning the ex-marine stuff every single time.

I love this show and have watched every season, always looking forward to the next. But this season is just way to scripted. Heavy winds with not a single tree swayin. Clear "acting" by new miners. It's becoming more cringing to watch than exciting. Yes, just the mining may not have the drama factor but it does have the realism factor which is what I'd much prefer to sink my time into.