Author Topic: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC  (Read 34226 times)

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Offline chunkylover53

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #50 on: June 17, 2006, 10:09:55 PM »
We will see what NBC thinks of their show since they have to show hockey on Monday instead of TH.   Do they move a repeat to show a new episode or how do they fix the problem?
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Offline puddin

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #51 on: June 17, 2006, 10:37:00 PM »
My local listings still have TH , no matter if its pre-empted they will just show it some other night ...hopefully no Weds because BBAllstars is on  :woohoo:


Offline Kogs

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #52 on: June 17, 2006, 10:42:50 PM »
My local listings still have TH , no matter if its pre-empted they will just show it some other night ...hopefully no Weds because BBAllstars is on  :woohoo:

my directv guide has hockey  ;) but they have alternate programming in parthenthasise that include treasure hunters

Offline chunkylover53

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #53 on: June 17, 2006, 10:47:45 PM »
I am sure they have a plan.  I guess we will find out tomorrow.
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Offline chunkylover53

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #54 on: June 18, 2006, 09:59:22 AM »
The negative reviews keep coming in.  This one from hollywoodreporter.com

The most striking thing about NBC's "Treasure Hunters" is how much it looks and feels like CBS' "The Amazing Race," right down to its summertime premiere. For a reality show to bear so close a resemblance to another, you would almost swear you were watching Fox. "Hunters" also pilfers elements from the film "National Treasure." While it doesn't improve on either the series or the film, it does a good job of recognizing the strengths of both and re-creating them.

At the same time, "Hunters," with its 10 executive producers and co-executive producers, forcefully argues for a theory of inverse relationship between the number of top execs and the degree of originality.

In this reality contest, 10 teams of three players dart across the U.S., performing physical challenges and solving an occasional puzzle. The challenges, though arduous, still can be performed by the few players who haven't seen the inside of a gym for a while. The puzzles, though a little tricky, still can be mastered by the team of Miss USA contestants.

Which brings us to the issue of casting, which is as critical for an unscripted show as it is for the scripted variety. Most teams in "Hunters" are telegenic and symbolic. There is the military team, the family team, the yuppie team, the babe team, the high IQ team, and so on. Just as in "Race," we get a little background about each of the competitors as the game begins. Not so much that we actually know them; just enough to stereotype them for cheering purposes.

The host is Laird Macintosh (also host for NBC's "Ultimate Playground"), whose resume includes modeling, acting and performing as a magician. Macintosh is a graduate of the Jeff Probst school of reality show hosts, which requires a deathly serious demeanor, as if this was more than a variation of a scavenger hunt but a race to stave off global warming and end world hunger.

In any case, the timing is right. With a weakened American dollar and the high cost of gas draining family budgets, more people are likely considering vacations close to home. With its first-class cinematography and vague allusions to America's history, "Hunters" reminds viewers that there are an abundance of things to see and do, even in Nebraska.

Reviewers were asked not to reveal the first team eliminated, but it is obvious in just the first few minutes who the real winners are -- members of the NBC sales department. Collectively, they have taken product placement to new and annoying heights. Contestants wear clothes, use cell phones, perform Internet searches and more for corporate sponsors. They can't travel a mile without being bombarded by commercial messages. Reality programming doesn't get more real than that.

Bottom line: The motto here is Out-hustle, Out-sell and Out-copy.
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Offline chunkylover53

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #55 on: June 18, 2006, 10:00:22 AM »
Variety.com pans it also

Even in the cutthroat world of summer reality shows, "Treasure Hunters" scores a rare superfecta -- borrowing elements from no fewer than four movies and TV shows. Think of it as a "The Da Vinci Code"-"National Treasure"-like quest with mind-teasing clues, leading to an "Amazing Race"-type contest between teams bearing labels ("Geniuses," "Ex-CIA," "Miss USA") plucked out of "Fear Factor." Frankly, the two-hour premiere is exhausting, but for those who can't get enough of seeing someone barf or a fat guy almost drown, it might be the perfect summer time-killer.

First, the mathematical set-up: Five teams of three are dispatched to Alaska and five more to Maui, without either knowing that a second competition is in the works. The various groups seek to decipher riddles that lead to physical tests, while a robotic host (Laird Macintosh) tells them, via a prominent product placement for a cellphone, when they've gotten it right and where to go next.

Granted, someone needs to be bitchslapped for one truly terrible decision, putting the beauty pageant contestants in Alaska, where they spend the early going covered up in parkas. Idiots! Fortunately, some blond twins in Hawaii immediately strip down to bikinis, providing minor compensation for this oversight.

Another young woman, on a boat, graphically loses her breakfast. Meanwhile, overweight brothers don swimsuits, too, and one announces that he doesn't know how to swim before plunging into choppy waters. Will he make it to shore? If not, tune in for NBC's next summer reality delight, "Insurance Hunters."

"Treasure Hunters" also dives right into the melodramatic urgency of reality competitions, and in the process comes away with some unintentional laughs. One team, for example, says in utter seriousness, "Right now, the CIA's our biggest concern." Gee, if only they were members of Congress.

Yet despite a pounding, tension-packed theme by "24""24" composer Sean Callery, the racing around adds up to a chaotic bore without a hint of originality, as well as the most confusing set of rules for a reality show since the first season of "The Mole." How do you win? What's the ultimate prize again? Does anybody really know what time it is, and does anybody really care?

In terms of assets, "Treasure Hunters" -- which receives a two-hour premiere before moving to Mondays -- does provide a pretty travelogue of its two locales, at least marginal legitimacy by virtue of "Da Vinci Code" producer Brian GrazerBrian Grazer's participation and the prospective fun of mounting a great big scavenger hunt with GE's money.

As treasures go, though, the real reward comes when the closing credits finally begin to roll. After two hours of silliness, now that's priceless.
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Offline chunkylover53

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #56 on: June 18, 2006, 10:03:29 AM »
LA Times doesn't exactly hate it.

If it worked once, they'll do it again
'Treasure Hunters' copies so many other reality series. But, hey, people like that stuff, so it'll probably survive.

"Treasure Hunters," which premieres Sunday night on NBC and moves to Mondays thereafter, is really no more than the globe-trotting CBS reality-competition series "The Amazing Race" dressed in the clothes of the 2004 Nicolas Cage action film "National Treasure." That film was about a hoard of loot hidden by the Founding Fathers behind a series of "Da Vinci Code"-style firewalls, brain teasers and locked boxes, and though the resemblances may not be technically actionable, if the network legal department has done its job, they are close enough that we may reasonably imagine Jerry Bruckheimer — producer of both "The Amazing Race" and "National Treasure," oddly — wondering just what is up with that.

Still, given that people are usually only too happy to be given another version of something they already like, and judging by the success of its constituent parts, I would expect this series to do well.

"Survivor" is, of course, also among its ancestors, the very model of the modern let's-pretend game show. (I detect hints as well of "Cannonball Run" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.") The stage here is set with some burble about "the secrets of history," "hidden messages left by our forefathers" and "seven mysterious artifacts" that "protect the secret of the key" to a treasure whose "location is guarded by an ancient secret society that still exists today." (Not Opus Dei, I am guessing.)

You should not expect too much of an actual story to emerge from this hodgepodge of themed puzzles, scenic romps and bold product placement (Visa cards, Motorola RAZR cellphones, Ask.com and Orbitz.com, "a crucial tool for booking your travel along the hunt"). But the narrative decorations are inextricable from the fun, in the same way that Candyland or Uncle Wiggly gives a little life to moving pieces around a board or Disneyland clothes a roller coaster in the trappings of a trip through space, a runaway mine train, an alpine adventure.

Ten teams of three hunt for clues that send them to puzzles whose solution hurries them on to their next destination; in Sunday's opener, all roads lead, through jungles and across glaciers, to Mt. Rushmore, just like in "North by Northwest," where the first team will be eliminated.

Each has its own theme: Air Force, Ex-CIA, Miss USA, Young Professionals, the Geniuses (not as smart as they think they are, is the already established joke), the Grad Students (hot girls, whose hotness is photographically emphasized) and so on.

Most of the contestants are young-to-youngish, sensibly enough, given all the running and climbing and swimming and diving and huffing and puffing involved, and a disproportionate number seem to be from Texas.

Notably bucking the age trend are the Brown Family, a trio of very large but very game African Americans in their late 30s and 40s; the mulleted and amusing Wild Hanlons; and the Fogal Family, headed by an Orange County pastor who seems to have taken as his guiding text "The Lord helps those who helps themselves."

"Treasure Hunters" is not as baldly Machiavellian as "Survivor," but there is room for bad behavior. "If there's a point where we have to stretch the truth a little bit and ask for forgiveness later," says Papa Fogal, "I don't think we're beyond that" — but one must remember that this is also the very mantra of reality television, where the truth is just taffy to pull. Any whisper of evil is sure to be amplified.

It's become commonplace to claim that the advantage of reality shows is that ordinary folks are inherently more interesting and (by definition) more authentic than what writers are making up these days. And though it is true that many working screenwriters have no ear for the way people actually talk, what the average Joe or Jane has to say is not always interesting either, or immune from cliché.

What reality TV does offer, however, that its invented competition largely does not, is a real sense of place. Non-reality television habitually substitutes one place for another in the name of practicality or economy. "Treasure Hunters" puts you exactly where it claims to put you: in the choppy waters off Maui, or on an Alaskan glacier, or the steps of the Nebraska State House, and does you the favor of photographing them well. This is exciting in itself, regardless of what the contestants are up to, and makes "Treasure Hunters" an ideal summer entertainment for armchair travelers.



Because sometimes the way to feel good about yourself is by making someone else feel bad. I am tired of making others feel good about themselves.

Offline PsychoJason

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #57 on: June 18, 2006, 10:38:51 AM »
I wonder what our role will be in this reality show? NBC has continuously said we can win a treasure too, so I'm wondering if their is either an ITV game we play with the show, or if we are all on the ultimate web search (Ask.com is a sponsor of Treasure Hunters). Let's put our hints on RFF...  :knuckles:

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Offline chunkylover53

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #58 on: June 18, 2006, 10:55:15 AM »
I have heard it may be something like Gameshow Marathon.
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Offline puddin

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Offline supsandalee

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #60 on: June 18, 2006, 05:44:15 PM »
I must have been living under a rock since TAR ended because I knew nothing about this show until this afternoon. :groan: I'm quickly reading all the posts to get caught up before the show begins. Can't wait! I need a reality tv fix before Big Brother begins.  :woohoo: 

Offline puddin

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #61 on: June 18, 2006, 05:54:10 PM »
SUPS ! Check out the TAR Spoilers for a fix  :woohoo:


 :waves:

Offline supsandalee

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #62 on: June 18, 2006, 06:05:59 PM »
SUPS ! Check out the TAR Spoilers for a fix  :woohoo:


 :waves:

Oh, I've read all the TAR spoilers -- I only took about a week off from there.

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Offline chunkylover53

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #63 on: June 18, 2006, 07:34:26 PM »
The Taylor Hicks Ford commerical during the show was quite disturbing.  I can't believe he had to take a job like that!! :groan:
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Offline Slowhatch

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #64 on: June 28, 2006, 07:55:12 PM »
I thought it was a little odd that the teams would make a long(ish) hike up the hill at Rushmore when no one could see the cache site from the main trail. But a sharp-eyed person at NBC has explained it: production hung rags from trees and bushes to mark the trail up to the site.

Offline Chateau d If

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #65 on: June 29, 2006, 11:58:37 AM »
I remember hearing some audio about "there's the burlap"

It's kind of like TAR when there is a lot of unheard info the additional info sheets. Like, for example, the address for Bart the Bear in Heber City.
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Offline RudyRules

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #66 on: June 30, 2006, 02:33:41 AM »
The Taylor Hicks Ford commerical during the show was quite disturbing.  I can't believe he had to take a job like that!! :groan:
You mean it was disturbing b/c you feel he HAD to take a job like that??
I know this is :ot:, but I don't think Taylor HAD to take that job.  In my estimation, it's an opportunity.  Commercials help expose new performers.  Once he gets going with his recordings he probably won't have time to do commercials!! Whatever, I'm a Taylor fan...and I like him in the Ford commercial...and just about anything he does is good to me.  :lol3:  (If you want, chunky, we can chat about this in a Taylor thread...or puddin will bust us!  :lol: )

Offline Pedaler

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Re: Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
« Reply #67 on: June 30, 2006, 12:38:44 PM »
Quote
I thought it was a little odd that the teams would make a long(ish) hike up the hill at Rushmore when no one could see the cache site from the main trail. But a sharp-eyed person at NBC has explained it: production hung rags from trees and bushes to mark the trail up to the site.


Thanks for the info, Slowhatch.  I was wondering that myself.

I enjoyed the entire Mt. Rushmore/Mt. Theodaore Roosevelt sequence except for that.  There was no explanation on how the teams figured out to hike off the main trail.