User Reviews

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've watched Gold Rush since day one. Always a favorite until the last couple of years. The Lewis crew story line is by far the most scripted and the hardest to watch out of all the crews. Besides his stupid looking hair cut, the constant mention of Fred's military service and Green Beret status, and lately, his overly dramatic wife interjecting herself into the mix has dragged the rest of the program down into stupid reality show territory. No wonder Parker and his team are hardly seen any more; not enough drama I guess.

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 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?

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!

The "5" is for the part of the show illustrating the gold mining.

If I was grading on the amateur acting of the Hoffman and Schnabel crews, it would be a fat zero.

I do enjoy the Beets portions without criticism - honest workers, no drama.

Schnabel - petulant spoiled brat, perpetual smirk on his face, an idiot that only looks successful due to the hard work of his employee - of which he is a real prick to every episode. What a goof!

Shows like this has an audience not for the fake drama, but just to watch the machines working, illustrate repairs and improvisation, and the final product. It doesn't need anything else! Just like "Ax Men", another great show that the producers ruined by the fake drama, this series is also going to eventually fail, if they keep up with the soap opera scripts.

EDIT/ADDED:

I've just finished watching S08 ep 20, and have to amend my review.

Todd and crew are pathetic, portray themselves as bumblers that have traveled North and South America mining for gold, and obviously don't have a clue about mining, nor understand the machines they use in the show. I see them as a bunch of aimless idiots!

Tony Beets has joined in the soap opera scripts, it seems - behaving like a greedy a-hole that resents anyone else operating a mine to the point of sabotaging others' operations?! Yes, what he does, obstructing the lawful movement and development of another business is criminal, *and if this was real acts of interference* he would be arrested and lose all the rights to his claims - forbidden from mining, himself...but it's fake, so he continues to just behave like a goof for the cameras.

Parker is still a tyrant brat that continues with his own fake crisis, fake feud with Beets, and fake drama.

*All these lands are owned by the State/Province/country, and mining rights/prospecting rights are permitted by the grace of these government jurisdictions*. All the show characters are only temporary guests of the land.

With contempt toward the show producers, that have lost focus on the gold mining, I've reduced the five-stars to a one...because zeroes aren't permitted.

This show is starting to bore the hell out of me!

Reality tv, normally the kind of thing I just pass on but in this case I have to admit that this is my guilty pleasure. It's like a documentary about how everything works in the gold mining industry. By now I know everything that needs to be known if I ever wanted to start gold mining, which by the way will never happen. Overall it's well shot, with alot of different camera angles that show the whole operation like if you were there. It's also a nice discovery on how people behave whilst having 'The Gold Fever'. I don't have to tell you that money brings the bad out of somebody, it's just obvious when you watch this show from start till the end. The characters they follow during all those years are all different but they also have alot in common, basically they are all first class a**holes. You have the Hoffman crew, with Todd "I can guarantee you" Hoffman as the leader and also the biggest loser of the whole show. Besides taking bad decisions after bad decisions he doesn't do much work. If you want an example on how to NOT run a mining business follow his example. His father, Jack Hoffman (or the papa smurf with the most annoying voice ever like I call him), is probably the most irritating character of Gold Rush. The whole crew likes to pray to God for gold. As good Christians as they are it's gold and welfare they pray for, not for world peace. As a convinced atheist it's just so funny to see them fail time after time. I guess their God couldn't be bothered with them. Needless to say Todd Hoffman and his crew are just the laughing stock of this show. Then you have the Schnabel crew, with the petulant child Parker as the head of the crew. At a really young age you can see that he's discovering gold mining, trying to make his grandfather proud, but ending up to be just a first class a**hole as well. I would probably smash his face after one day but that's just me. But it's fair to say that he learns the business and he will succeed as he knows what he's doing contrary to the Hoffmans. His grandfather and father look like nice people, I guess he didn't inherit their character. Then you have "The Dakota Boys" with Fred and Dustin Hurt, father and son, clearly obsessed by the gold. Father Fred is probably the man with dirtiest finger nails on this planet, I guess a manicure costs way too much for him, the greedy b*st*rd. He starts the show as a claim jumper, basically a filthy little thief. So it's really enjoyable to see karma catching up on him. He obviously can fix things over there in the bush, and that comes in handy, but everytime something goes wrong I couldn't help myself being happy watching him fail and lose money. He's just a little greedy filthy thief. His son is about okay, even though I can see him becoming like his father. And then, for the piece de résistance, you have the Beets crew, with the godfather of the gold mining industry, Tony Beets. The way he treats people is just awful, even his own kids. I don't know how he never got shot or beaten up by now. But he knows what he does, that's a fact. From Dutch origin, you can clearly hear that from their accents, the Beets family business are making money, day after day, year after year, but will probably die friendless with alot of gold. You also get to watch and follow other characters during all those seasons, some good hardworking people that deserve much more than the constant verbal abuse from their "bosses". If I had to chose people to make a good crew I would go for Fred Dodge, Andy Spinks, Dave Turin, Mitch Blaschke, Gene Cheeseman, John Schnabel, Juan Ibarra, Rick Ness and Jim Thurber. I think with those people gold mining would be a success, but also pleasant working, that in my eyes is so more important than money. Basically this reality tv show is about people obsessed by finding gold, but it's all well documented and shot.

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.

Starting at first season and going to the last season, you follow the journey of multiple teams searching for gold. Each season gets better and better. You also create bonds with each group.

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.

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.

This, and the show about the sea(i cant recall yet to give them 10) are to me funny because is entertainment,and i like the landscape and the many trucks and cat equipment, and volvo equipment... for some funny reason i forgot many times that is about gold diggers, and i watch the trucks and the cats and volvos work and i like.

Whats more fun is that in some way is a relaxing show, because the landscapes are so beautiful, that you forget this is a search for money.one of the best episodes for me is how the just do a camping there, they eat there, put the trucks close, and they hang out in the nature like friends.

Keep doing episodes, i want to see more¡¡¡

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...

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.

We all know that the majority of reality shows have a ton of staged, recreated and acted scenes. This series is no exception. The first few seasons are fairly real, then it becomes progressively more sensationalized, acted and staged. One of the mines is being run by a 19 year old, who is doing a good job running the mine, especially considering his age, but he develops a progressively cocky attitude that gets pretty annoying. It may be the producers editing it that way, doesn't appear to be though. Another crew has a group prayer every day and asks god to make them rich. That's pretty gross. Also, the guy that runs that crew has a truck that has a laughably and ridiculously huge lift kit on it.

I must say I do like some of the segments and some of the characters and others I can tolerate. My biggest disappointment is the scripting, it is so plain to see, if it wasn't there is no way in hell that asshole Parker SNOBbell would have any crew left working for him. I guess the show has to have a bad guy and he is it !!

Did anybody catch the weighting of Parker Schnabel's gold weight? What I saw after the first container was weighed and when the second container was being poured the footage switches to a dark container then switches back to the silver container I know I'm not hallucinating because I watched the footage over and over several times to verify what I saw. I use to love watching this show evidently it's scripted to enhance what is truly not reality tv unscripted. If you're going to script a show at least do a better job of adding footages or photoshopping with similar footages instead of putting footages of something else. That was such a obvious blunder on your film editors part. Who edited this lmfao before they aired it. Now it makes me wonder if all the people's gold weight has been padded to enhance the show. I'm not torturing myself to rewatch all the episodes to check if all the total gold weighting is all FAKE!

I thought it might get better after they got rid of the Hoffmans. Now it's a 100% scripted. The only things that aren;t scripted are equipment breakdowns, at least flipped vehicles. We're supposed to believe now Parker is making first year rookie mistakes. Sorry but the whole this is looking desperate. I think the show producers panicked at the thought of loosing a cash cow so instead of trusting a mix of half scripted and half real they went for a 100% scripted. I always hated the scripted parts so I don;t see any point in watching it anymore. Even the stuff with Parker's old foreman is ridiculous. The guy has been running mining crews for years and according to their "scripts" he didn;t learn a thing and is screwing up even more than Parker. Parker, a guy that in a few years worked himself up to pulling out millions in gold a year and we're supposed to believe he's incompetent. Silly, stupid, SCRIPTED!

A bunch of incompetent Yahoos go out digging in the woods. Its really as simple as that. Aload of twerps get some money together, decide to go to alaska and try to mine Gold..... Very Unsuccessfully. If there was a competition between The sea shepherd crew of WHALE WARS and the Hoffman crew on GOLD RUSH over which bunch of morons were the most incompetent ,the Hoffmans would win by miles. It was cringe worthy to watch, especially the patriarch of the group , the father.... There's a Certified asshole if ever there was one.

We all know there's bears in alaska don't we, so if we were setting up camp we'd take a gun or two for protection.... But 47! What are they thinking??? Complete and utter Yahoos..... And why the hell did they bring their kids up there.... Watch it... Even just one episode, it will make you happy to know that even on your worst day you will be more intelligent than any of these guys on their best day.