There is something about shows like Pirate Gold of Adak Island that makes them eminently watchable for me. It’s a guilty pleasure thing. A “turn your brain off” kind of entertainment. Not the most compelling, exciting, or educational, but just enough of all those things to make me want to put it on, and keep it on.
Gold! Always Believe In Your Soul!
Pirate Gold of Adak Island is (obviously!) about the search for pirate gold on Adak Island. The mayor of the island has pulled together a band of treasure hunters to search for the buried gold of an 18th century Russian pirate named Gregory Dwargstof. The team of treasure hunters include a couple of heavy machine fabricators who grew up on the island, a geologist, and a technologist (basically a guy with the best metal detector).
The show just about does enough to be classified as serialized television. In each episode of this eight episode series, the treasure hunters kinda walk around different locations on the island with their fancy metal detectors. Every once in awhile these detectors go off, and everyone gets excited, and gather around as someone digs up an aluminum can (the metal detector’s worst nightmare apparently), some bronze thing or other (bronze and gold “sound” the same to a metal detector), a bullet, or some long buried explosive device.
Adak Island used to be a military base due to its proximity to Russia and that is the crux of this search for gold. Back when the base was being set up, military personnel digging around the island found 18th century cans filled with gold coins. So here we are now, watching five people walk around a remote, barely inhabited island, with metal detectors.
This is the type of reality TV that I love. It is my guilty pleasure. It’s History’s NINE (9!!!) seasons of The Curse of Oak Island. Or Discovery’s EIGHTEEN (18!!!) SEASONS of Deadliest Catch. It’s American Chopper and American Pickers. It’s Netflix’s Rust Valley Restorers.
It’s a Pirate’s (Gold) Life For Me
The best way I can justify this love of the genre to myself is that I love watching good people work on their passion. Sure there is a vague “historical/education” element to it, but it’s the passion that keeps me watching. Yes, Adak Island does feel scripted at times, and yes the treasure hunters don’t really find much, and yes, the internet is now rife with claims of fakery, but our human yen to do something so ridiculous keeps me watching.
Why did they think leaving their families behind to chase gold on a remote island was a good idea? Why would you risk your professional academic reputation to do something so ridiculous? And now that I think about it, is all this just a ploy by the Adak mayor to encourage tourism?
In the final two episodes of the series, the team finally starts making some headway. After spending the preceding six episodes chasing down unconfirmed leads, avoiding unexploded ordnances, and finding enough trash to dash anyone else’s dreams of buried treasure, the team find a gold coin. And then another. Is it fake? Were the coins planted by the producers? Is it all just a ruse?
Who knows? But I can tell you that if there is a second season to this thing, I will be watching it.
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