Archive > Treasure Hunters
Treasure Hunters Premeires June 16th on NBC
chunkylover53:
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.
chunkylover53:
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.
PsychoJason:
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:
GO OILERS!
chunkylover53:
I have heard it may be something like Gameshow Marathon.
puddin:
http://www.nbc.com/Treasure_Hunters/game/
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