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.

I spent 54 years as a journeyman truck-and heavy-equipment mechanic, often working through the night by myself a long way away from any help. I am amazed when I see things such as equipment operating for long periods without a sign of a grease gun or any maintenance at all! A season or two ago, an excavator chewed up a final and Jack took it apart, and it was obvious that it was bone-dry without lube- no wonder! Does anyone there ever check fluid-levels or grease anything? They seem to just jump in and go to work! I don't see them winterize anything, yet they come back the next year and wouldn't you know? It fires right up, and again they go right to work with it! Amazing equipment, huh? This year Todd and Jack take over an existing claim, and wouldn't ya know? Somebody left equipment there! Another miracle- the batteries are hot, the stuff starts right up without anyone checking a thing. Hells' bells, the Teletubbies have more smarts! I have to add one more thing... the narrator has a death-wish outlook! If something minor happens, suddenly we're told "If they can't fix it, all will be lost!" C'mon, get real. Take care of it and keep going.

I enjoyed Gold Rush for years until producers decided to start creating BS scenarios. What made this show special was the same thing that made other reality shows special in their early days. It was mostly REAL! I lost intrest around season 7 because I started noticing these scripted scenes. I've recently came back and started watching where I left off. I'm now on season 10 and the BS scenarios, artificial incidents and obvious scripting is ridiculous. I'm having trouble just watching a single episode because they're all scripted the same. Camera flips, person yells, edits all over the place, insert artificial scenario then you find out a truck tire is in a ditch... The show needs to get back to its roots and stop trying to create scenarios. It's as bad as a horror movie overusing jump scares...

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.

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.