Ghost Town Gold – Netflix Season 1 Review

Episode Guide

Boomtown or Bust
Trailblazin’ to Treasure
Pioneering Profit
Trailing Outlaws
Showdown in Silver City
The Big Gamble

Ghost Town Gold is very much staged. Almost painfully so. From the propped up cameras inside the long-abandoned areas to the sudden plethora of rare artifacts the two hosts find everywhere they go, at times the shock reveals border on eye-rollingly bad. Yet there’s something engaging at the heart of the show that makes this a real guilty pleasure to watch. From the interesting historical facts and archival photos through to the various abandoned areas the pair travel to, Ghost Town Gold should not be as fun to watch as it is.

The general premise of the show sees two hosts, Brit Eaton and Scott Glaves, travelling across the American frontier in search of lost treasures in make-shift boom towns and long-abandoned mines. Convinced these towns hold valuable relics lying around, the two men go in search of treasures they can find or barter off people to then subsequently sell on to higher bidders at a tasty profit

It helps as well that the two hosts themselves are enthusiastic, passionate and generally likable throughout the show. They clearly love their jobs and seeing this infectious drive throughout the 6 episodes makes this much more palatable to watch. To re-emphasize the original point though, Ghost Town Gold is clearly staged. Some of the incredibly rare items they find look brand new and despite emphasizing at the start of the show that the items they find hold character by being so rusty and ancient, seeing shiny bottles and trinkets in the depths of wells and mineshafts completely contradict these points.

Thankfully, the historical facts and history of different regions are easily the highlight here. Through the use of archival photos and clear narration, the two hosts paint a picture of what the items they find would have been used for and retell tales about some of the more famous people that lived through this era. If these 6 episodes saw the pair travelling around and finding items every now and then, Ghost Town Gold would actually have been much more engaging and interesting.

At least from an educational perspective, Ghost Town Gold does surprisingly well to flesh its show out with some meaningful facts and anecdotes from history. It’s just a shame that it’s bogged down by an incessant need to shock and dramatically enhance each episode with a plethora of staged and unbelievable finds. If you can look past these moments though and take to the history and theme of the show, Ghost Town Gold is a lot of fun but it does make for quite the taxing watch at times.

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