seriosbrad
First season was intriguing. But immediately starting the second season you clue in to how scripted and funded the teams are.At the end of the first season, they didn't mine enough gold to pay their own wages, break even, or even purchase new equipment.Season 2, they mysteriously had gobs of money to re-locate, lease and mine a new plot, and purchase new equipment.
Peka Bali
I started watching the series with I guess the same fascination many of us have: the interesting and daring abilities of man, the perseverence and excitement in achieving success. After a few series, I realized that this series is the representation of Evil in its purest form: the American Dream gone bad.. The financials of a gold-digging business consists of cost and revenue: the struggle is about earning more than spending on equipment and manpower. And while it seems useful for the sakes of employing people, the net sum is that there is no practical use whatsoever of adding gold to the existing gold in the world: the enormous sums of gold that exist currently are not even fractionally being used for useful purposes, such as healthcare equipment or R&D. Most of it is used purely for speculation or totally useless consumer goods we could live without, or for which alternatives could be developed from other materials than gold. But the result of the gold digging business is, almost equal to the enormous amounts of money earned with this rare metal, the enormous pollution caused by the machines that work on digging it out and dredging, not to speak of the maintenance of these machines and even more pollution creating them for this purpose. And given the relative cheapness of oil compared to the value of gold, the volumes puffed away are enormous. Not to forget the accessability of gold: trees destroyed, creeks diverted, top soil removed which we are in dire need of to sustain nature, and the non-mentioned chemical treatments that many companies use to make the gold even more accessible. And all this for what? To give some punters the chance to get rich. What a noble cause.. Which brings me to the second, human aspect: the way these miners are portrayed. Their lifestyle and attitude towards other fellow humans. Moreover, towards those who make them rich. Here, the operation owners show their truly dark side: the hypocrite quasi-Christian praying of the simple-minded Hoffman, who behaves as if it is an unjust act of God if he does not get rich from gold digging, while he obviously has no clue of the business and most likely never made a profit, were it not for the heavy royalty money he gets from the producers of the series. Does God exists for the purpose of bringing them gold, as if the entity were some servant that does favours?.. Followed by the ego-centric Schnabel, who instead of learning humanity and humility from his late grandfather, has learned to become a self-appointed prodigy for the sakes of showing his merits, walking over his loyal men at any given occasion with the fury of a 5-year-old deprived of his toys, while immediately deserting them when a new kid comes around the block who kisses his *ss and hisses as a snake in his ears. No spine whatsoever, in the business pour l'art and would not survive either, were it not for the parents offering him this opportunity to play with toys. Last but worse, Mr Evil himself, the peasant Dutchman turned dictator, Tony Beets. The style is the man himself: hates the world and everything in it and the only God for this man is money. Treats everyone who works for him worse than slaves, including his own children who hate him and just see him as a fat wallet, just to compensate for his lack of self respect, justly knowing that someone like him should never be in a position of power, due to his sheer destructive manner towards anything human. The three flawed characters represent the American Dream gone bad: no noble cause, exploiting the opportunities offered in the worst possible way, people that serve them and destroying nature along the way. We watch with fascination, as if a dark drama is being presented that never ends, always waiting for liberation when finally their success may turn them into the good people we hope they really are deep within. But the fact is, the evil in them grows along with the purpose of the business and will never lessen. Their success will only justify their methods and the spiral never ends. It is up to us to decide whether we realise the sickness of it all and learn the lessons taught: what to avoid in our ways at all cost, how not to live our lives and finding real purposes instead of these people's meaningless goals. The sad reality however is that the producers do not make any attempt to offer this choice: no contemplation, no retrospect, no reflection. The series is shallow and is lost in the mechanics of the business, in the details of „thrills and tension" whenever a new human bond is tested or broken, due to the inherent risks of the ventures. We are left to our devices to learn and most of us probably are led to believe that the acts are heroic and for worthy causes, just another aspect of a twisted world. The producers would have a powerful means to reflect on the sickness of it all, instead they exploit the weak human interest in sensation and drama and encourage drama to portray twisted minds as heroic acts of perseverence. Either they are pathetic or plain dumb. The series is a human fail and should be taught in schools as media manipulation first degree. The actors should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, the producers sent to detox to get rid of their perverted minds. Meanwhile, stay sane and use your heart when you watch this garbage. The real world is not like this, don't let it become like it by accepting lies as the truth.
dowotyalike
I saw a few episodes of the first season and was intrigued but forgot about the show until I caught an episode from Gold Rush: Alaska and have since watched that entire series and am salivating to watch more new episodes or to see what happens. Season 3 is a must, as this show just seems to now be hitting it's stride. Gold Rush Alaska is the NEW Storage Wars! I've enjoyed Storage Wars, I begrudgingly watch Pawn Stars but just find that show to be all contrived, and Ricks Dads is unintelligible, talks like his mouth is full of marbles, and with Rick's laugh, who needs canned laughter or a laugh-track, he laughs at all his own jokes! Ricks laugh reminds me of Muggsy from cartoon land. Suffice to say it barely holds 22 minutes of interest for me.Gold Rush Alaska is filmed and shot extremely well, it has great flow and has a terrific pace to it. The narration is well done and the music is fantastic. Graphics show you where these claims are and allows for easy following. If this is the future of TV then count me in, this show rocks!
Ben Williams
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?
