I have to admit, Gold Rush is one of my secret indulgences. I can't stand Todd and his old man, but I really like some of the other guys on the show. Just watching the season 5 opener, and I'm liking what I see so far... Todd has failed and his team has given up on him and fucked off... Dave and Freddie have gone off and formed what looks like an amazing team... Tony Beets bought a fucking 100 year-old dredge ("every Viking needs a ship... this is mine") and I can't wait to see that thing come back to life... Parker gets a harsh wakeup call when Tony doesn't just give him prime land, so he goes off and does his own thing for the first time... Looking forward to seeing how this season goes. Anyone else watching this?
Nah... he's just a kid. We all went through that phase... he just gets to do it running $250k worth of heavy equipment processing $1 million worth of gold, never mind being put in a leadership position without any training or experience. You know how guys go nuts when they juice... testosterone rage? That's pretty well what kids do when they go through puberty. Combine all that shit with an international show and a 24x7 film crew, all on a kid not old enough to drink, and I'm kind of impressed with how well he handles it. And he's got a hell of a work ethic. So yeah, I'm willing to cut the kid a fair bit of slack.
I have to admit I love this show and it's one of the few I actually miss when the season ends. It amazes me how Todd even has the money or finds people to let him operate a mining operation at all. As for Parker I think he handles himself remarkably well for being only 19 years old. He is 10 times the man Todd is. That guy could fuck up a wet dream. I had absolutely no clue at all when I was 19 never mind being able to run heavy equipment on a one million dollar plus operation like that. I think he's an amazing kid. Anyone know what happened to Fred and Dustin? I always enjoyed watching them even though Fred can be a major douche.
Turns out that they wanted a raise, didn't get it, and were dropped from the show. Story Here Apparently they hired another crew to film them over the summer, but no details yet on how/where/if it'll be released.
I am actually kind of glad Dakota Fred isn't on this season. I would much rather watch Tony Beets instead of him and his son arguing all the time. I enjoy watching Parker cause he is a hell of a worker for someone his age even though he has his little hissy fits every once and awhile.
Just watched the last episode, and I fucking howled when I watched Minnie Beats tell Tony how the fuck things were going down. No question who runs that family. Was also laughing when I watched Todd, his old man, and Furman try and get that washplant across the river.
I think it's Thurber, but it was pretty funny. Anything involving Todd and his Father is going to be a clusterfuck. The only reason I want them to find gold is so that poor Thurber finally gets some money after putting up with their shit all these years.
The fact that he actually listened to his wife and didn't argue with her or act like a dick in any way made me like him that much more. He even seemed to laugh about it. Even after he sat in the crane and she said "It's yours. I bought it." Most guys would have thrown a huge fit and cursed her for it. As far as Todd and Jack as much as I think they are incompetent and stupid as hell, I thought they did okay with the wash plant. I don't think it was their fault they hit a soft patch of road. It was funny watching them get it UNstuck though.
I just really hope that the shit that Todd and Jack do is really exaggerated in editing, because otherwise it's fucking scary. And I tend to think that the stuff Tony Beats is doing is edited to make it look safer.
Tony Beets cracks me up. He's the only guy I've ever seen on TV who uses "fuck" in some form in every single sentence that he utters. Parker has a ridiculous, admirable drive, but he is very quick to throw blame and get shitty with people, and when those people are twice his age, it can be a hard thing to take. When the truck went off the road when it started to thaw out and become a mud pit, I think he was too much of a dick about it. People in general ought to swallow their pride and work well together as a team for a common good, but I can tell you if I had a boss who was 19 years old and he was scolding me, I'm not sure how well I would handle it. Especially if its misguided.
Yeah, but he's really still just a kid. He hasn't learned that wisdom yet. You can see a change in him even over the last few years, and he's getting better with it, but every now and then he still runs into a situation that he doesn't know how to handle so he goes off. He's still thinking everything is supposed to go his way, and he gets petulant when it doesn't. Like when he went to Tony for that additional land, and Tony laughed and said "no fucking way I'm going to give that to a kid!". Parker couldn't comprehend that. I think the show has done great things for his maturity, but it's also given him a bit of a sense of entitlement that he butts into every now and then. At least he's growing and maturing in the process. A lot of people have that "fuck you, kids are equal to old fucks" mentality, and fuck knows we've all seen the threads that blow up about it around here, but one thing kids don't have, by definition, is time and experience. Leading people is not something you're born with... hell, I'm going through that right now in my company where there's a Director who is in a position of authority but has no clue how to professionally interact with or manage people. He's a great guy one-on-one, but he's probably going to get canned because of he lacks the basic leadership skills required. Parker has been thrown into a situation where he's got HUGE management responsibilities, both man and resource, and he's learning as he goes. His only mentor (or so it seems), is Tony Beats, and his leadership style could be considered quite questionable, and Parker is now pissed off at him over the lack of new land thing. He needs someone to help guide him in that aspect of the mining... he's got the digging and washing part down, but now he's got to learn the leadership part. It's going to take time, and in his case, lots of trial and error... unfortunately. It'd be so much better if they brought in a management coach to help him out and educate him on that side of things, but I doubt it'll happen, because that won't make "good" TV. Personally, I'd rather see him grow and succeed and become a great leader than watch the "drama" of his flailing interactions with his crew. Call me crazy.
I've operated heavy equipment since I was in my teens, and watching these guys run shit is excruciating. It almost seems like they try to find the slowest, most dangerous and inefficient way possible to do things. I'm confident that I could accomplish in 6 hours what they could in an entire day, and that wouldn't even be worth bragging about.
I was happy to see the Hoffman's get a nice clean-out for their first weigh in. Too bad about their excavator though. I think the real problem is the dad. When he gets going with the machinery, he goes all sex nuts and doesn't listen to anyone or take instruction. Too bad because he's the prototypical gold prospector. Complete with the way he talks and everything. If he wasn't such a tard, I bet the team would have been better in past years. Also, without Thurber, they would be absolutely no where. I'm enjoying watching Parker. Kid is ambitious but he might be shooting for a little too much too soon. It also looks like he will be trying to move his whole operation to a different location on the claim. This might be a disaster.
I can't remember who here said it first, but a hilarious spin-off series could be taking the Hoffmans around the USA for a bunch of different jobs, just to see how they fuck 'em all up. Like Dirty Jobs but with idiots.
Me too. I think it would be amazing, but you'd pretty much have to pay them to accept the fact that they are mental midgets and we only want to see how stupid they are at everything.
Well yes, but they think they are good at it and smart. This spinoff premise is that they know they are completely retarded now and we just want to see that aspect.