I remember when "metal detecting" was portrayed as a hobby for losers, done by sidekicks in lesser comedies. It's usually some half-witted asocial kid, roaming the beaches after the summer, searching the sand for jewelry misplaced by tourists using an army surplus metal detector. Quite surprisingly, the hobby has made it into prime time documentary television. Not so surprisingly, the protagonists retain the said mentality.
"Diggers" is a pseudo-reality show aired on National Geographic. It features two losers roaming the countryside and people's yards with their metal detectors, in search of valuables they hope to sell. Just to mask the banality of it all, they've been set to search for items of "historical" value. Hence, the show is set in the region of the thirteen colonies where such items are most likely to be found.
The pair doesn't seem very bright to begin with, judging by the way they look, talk and behave. But when they start hollering and leaping up and down the lawn, like two monkeys unleashed, whenever they find something, they really look like they belong to an asylum. And they do it way too often to bear. It's somewhat understandable, though, seeing that there appears to be a large collectors market for all things antique, and there'll be paycheck for the both. However, it would be better that all the celebratory scenes were left on the editing room floor. And, mind you, there isn't any comical intent in their demeanor - they really mean it.
Unfortunately, there isn't anything better to fill that half hour's worth of an episode with. All they ever find is bullets, army badges and parts of cannonballs, basically. One gets the sense that the market is slowly but surely being saturated with these kind of findings, so their commercial value is not particularly impressive. Without a proper historical context, which is rarely given in the show, nothing they find has a real historical value either. Compare this show to BBC's "Time Team" where professional archaeologists systematically dig out items on a designated site, piecing the whole story together into something rewarding for the viewer. No such thing here at "Diggers'".
Having said that, the show's general fault in my mind isn't the superficiality or the gold digging aspect of it. I actually like watching shows where something forgotten or abandoned is given the new value. I cannot have enough of numerous "container battles" or "storage hunters". This show is basically a flip show but with metal detecting instead of auctioneering. No, the show's fault is having two complete retards run it. They are woefully hopeless, bar-lowering pair of human beings. There used to be a standard, perhaps unwritten, of who is fit enough to host a TV show. Not anymore, I guess.
