Do you watch Oak Island?

Thread Starter

Raymond Genovese

Joined Mar 5, 2016
1,653
I admit that I watch too much TV. Much (even most) is junk and a waste of time, but easy and I like to zone out on occasion. I can't justify even higher-level cable (I have the Basic +, I don't know how many, an S-load of channels but none of the HBOs, Showtimes and the like) or Netflix, Hulu and the rest, but I do watch a few shows with regularity.

That being said, I really like watching Oak Island.

These two brothers apparently made a ton of money in oil and now they are on a multi-year adventure. And, oh the toys! Big manly diggers and then they bring in huge rigs to drill way down. Lots and lots of high tech imaging and metal detecting. Carbon dating and recently, genomics. All sorts of fun stuff - I would absolutely love an adventure like that!

I'm hooked like I was hooked on the (now defunct?) autonomous vehicle contests. I really want them to find things out and they have already advanced way past the bizarre stories that have about as much evidence as your run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory.

Usually, reality shows are anything but - this one looks different to me - am I just being duped?

[No spoilers please]
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
Usually, reality shows are anything but - this one looks different to me - am I just being duped?
I became hooked on the Money Pit story when I was a kid. We had a paperback book of "mysteries" and Oak Island was one of them. I was enthralled.

Years later, not too long before the show started, that childhood memory struck me one day and I thought I would get a satisfying answer out of our modern friend, Google. There was virtually nothing online at that time and I gave up. I figured the story was just that - a story. I don't recall for certain but I think some of the other 'mysteries' in that book were just rubbish.

Anyway, I was stunned one day to find out there was a show devoted to the Oak Island story and somebody with funding that might have the resources to solve the mystery once and for all.

It's hard to explain how deeply this mystery has 'bothered' me all these years. It's a little like the Kennedy assassination but with more hope of a resolution.

So yes, I'm watching and I'm going to fire up the latest episode as soon as I get done typing this.
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
I watched it for a while then got sick of the nonsense. Too much drama and not enough actual gainful work for the time and money spent.

A while back one evening a few of us guys with backgrounds in heavy construction and earth moving got onto the subject and going by what one guys online search for the amount of time and money they spent up to that point was we figured that we could have rented the biggest most hammerdown non mining scale earth moving and excavating equipment out there and turned that whole end of the island, and fair amount more of it, into a 200+ foot deep crater and then some and still had cash left over. :rolleyes:
 

Thread Starter

Raymond Genovese

Joined Mar 5, 2016
1,653
There is another show you might like...

No, seriously, you understand that the island is privately owned, right? I mean, you can't just bring in a Decepticon Demolishor and go to town...permissions, Gov permits, promises to put everything back when you're done playing....that kind of thing. I guess you could declare war on Canada, but then where would we get Canadian Bacon? :)
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
I watched it for a while then got sick of the nonsense. Too much drama and not enough actual gainful work for the time and money spent.

A while back one evening a few of us guys with backgrounds in heavy construction and earth moving got onto the subject and going by what one guys online search for the amount of time and money they spent up to that point was we figured that we could have rented the biggest most hammerdown non mining scale earth moving and excavating equipment out there and turned that whole end of the island, and fair amount more of it, into a 200+ foot deep crater and then some and still had cash left over. :rolleyes:
Well you have to add + Kennedy Assassination, Hitlers South American disappearance and discovery, and Aliens.

Um, is this a discovery?

No, it's television and advertising. We are in it for the win, but bitterly disappointed. However, still seem intrigued.

There is still one more to go, and one more to go and......................

kv
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
I admit that I watch too much TV. Much (even most) is junk and a waste of time, but easy and I like to zone out on occasion. I can't justify even higher-level cable (I have the Basic +, I don't know how many, an S-load of channels but none of the HBOs, Showtimes and the like) or Netflix, Hulu and the rest, but I do watch a few shows with regularity.

That being said, I really like watching Oak Island.

These two brothers apparently made a ton of money in oil and now they are on a multi-year adventure. And, oh the toys! Big manly diggers and then they bring in huge rigs to drill way down. Lots and lots of high tech imaging and metal detecting. Carbon dating and recently, genomics. All sorts of fun stuff - I would absolutely love an adventure like that!

I'm hooked like I was hooked on the (now defunct?) autonomous vehicle contests. I really want them to find things out and they have already advanced way past the bizarre stories that have about as much evidence as your run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory.

Usually, reality shows are anything but - this one looks different to me - am I just being duped?

[No spoilers please]

Keeps me living as if something is still worth discovering, I guess keeps me young.

kv :)
 

Thread Starter

Raymond Genovese

Joined Mar 5, 2016
1,653
Well you have to add + Kennedy Assassination, Hitlers South American disappearance and discovery, and Aliens.

Um, is this a discovery?

No, it's television and advertising. We are in it for the win, but bitterly disappointed. However, still seem intrigued.

There is still one more to go, and one more to go and......................

kv
You're right, of course...it's television...as you said. But, there are exceptions...Connections, Ken Burn's documentaries, the old aforementioned Autonomous Vehicle Challenge...It's always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Still, I want those guys to find more stuff...I'm in it for the win as you said - are you thinking it is another Al Capone's Vault??? Say it aint so!
 

xox

Joined Sep 8, 2017
838
Don't watch television. It's just a vehicle for peddling ideologies, consumerism, and complacency. A site like youtube is a much better source of entertainment. It allows you choose what to watch in the first place and then makes recommendations based on your viewing habits. As long as you don't tend toward spoon-fed type content, the results can be pretty rewarding. Here's just a smattering of todays youtube suggestions for me, and I enjoyed watching every one of 'em.




 
Last edited:

JoeJester

Joined Apr 26, 2005
4,390
I remember the Oak Island story as a kid as well. I'm an avid watcher. Drama? Sure. It's tough to make research sexie.

I watch more history channel than others.

Don't forget JFK, zodiac killer, hitler, knights templar, aliens, et al. I think I'm reverting back to the days when 14 days of 16 mm 2 hour movies came in the log flight and we watched them all that weekend, only to be interrupted by the "scheduled" movie. You can watch the whole series, or listen to it, via the app.
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
I remember the Oak Island story as a kid as well. I'm an avid watcher. Drama? Sure. It's tough to make research sexie.

I watch more history channel than others.

Don't forget JFK, zodiac killer, hitler, knights templar, aliens, et al. I think I'm reverting back to the days when 14 days of 16 mm 2 hour movies came in the log flight and we watched them all that weekend, only to be interrupted by the "scheduled" movie. You can watch the whole series, or listen to it, via the app.
What App you talking about?

Sounds cool. I'm out of videos until the next episode of Oak Island.

kv
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
I watched it for a while then got sick of the nonsense. Too much drama and not enough actual gainful work for the time and money spent.

A while back one evening a few of us guys with backgrounds in heavy construction and earth moving got onto the subject and going by what one guys online search for the amount of time and money they spent up to that point was we figured that we could have rented the biggest most hammerdown non mining scale earth moving and excavating equipment out there and turned that whole end of the island, and fair amount more of it, into a 200+ foot deep crater and then some and still had cash left over. :rolleyes:
FWIW, it's better than it was. They tend to have more results per episode and a little less drama. A little.

There are a lot of goofy things going on with that show. I've written them off as necessary for the producers. One example: A half dozen people will march into the woods to go metal detecting and only one of them is carrying a detector. And as you've noted, they seem to waste time on various contractors coming by with their whiz-bang equipment. I've wondered if this is a show-and-tell opportunity for the contractors, free advertising on the show in exchange for a reduced fee.

The latest thing I don't get is their plan to sink a 4-ft diameter caisson into the spot they're convinced is the original money pit. If your wildest dream is that, say, the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant, or Shakespeare's lost works or whatever is buried there, why the hell would you drill a 4-foot steel pipe through the middle of it? Even if you're in the right spot, now you're separated from the treasure by a steel prison wall.
 

Thread Starter

Raymond Genovese

Joined Mar 5, 2016
1,653
FWIW, it's better than it was. They tend to have more results per episode and a little less drama. A little.

There are a lot of goofy things going on with that show. I've written them off as necessary for the producers. One example: A half dozen people will march into the woods to go metal detecting and only one of them is carrying a detector. And as you've noted, they seem to waste time on various contractors coming by with their whiz-bang equipment. I've wondered if this is a show-and-tell opportunity for the contractors, free advertising on the show in exchange for a reduced fee.

The latest thing I don't get is their plan to sink a 4-ft diameter caisson into the spot they're convinced is the original money pit. If your wildest dream is that, say, the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant, or Shakespeare's lost works or whatever is buried there, why the hell would you drill a 4-foot steel pipe through the middle of it? Even if you're in the right spot, now you're separated from the treasure by a steel prison wall.
Yes, there sometimes seems to be an awful lot of "fluff". I chalk it up to lowest common denominator presentation - give everyone something of interest.

The multiple people accompanying the one guy with the detector is strange. I get it, he is King of all the Detectorists, but is a crew of assistants necessary? Ok, I have the big shovel, you take the little shovel and the other guy will run the hand-held small detector through the 3 shovel fulls of dirt and so on.

I also abhor the wild speculation theories that used to take up a huge chunk of the show.

They still go back to these though - the paper/leather fragment must mean the original works of Shakespeare are down there!

But I think it is cool that they took the fragment for electron microscopy and has some expert opinion rendered and a recommendation to go talk to a textile expert. Or the identification of the spike as typical of those used in ships.

The bone chips are very cool, but the genomics will be used to bolster some far-fetched theory. If we have dead people way down there, it is an important finding, unless you end up telling me that they could have come through the ocean under the Island.

I thought the 4-ft hole was to be able to get a camera down there as they have done in the past.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
I also abhor the wild speculation theories that used to take up a huge chunk of the show.
I don't mind them - once. But it does make me nuts when they dramatically leap from something the size of a fingernail to, well, you know. Or a vague DNA result to obvious support for another pet theory. It's all interesting data and it's fair to make the connections to remind people of the possibilities, but the producers don't stop there. They hit us over the head with a mallet over and over. And that stupid narrator that starts each hammering with some breathless question. Sheesh. But, I can live with anything that gets the mystery solved.
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
There are a lot of goofy things going on with that show. I've written them off as necessary for the producers. One example: A half dozen people will march into the woods to go metal detecting and only one of them is carrying a detector. And as you've noted, they seem to waste time on various contractors coming by with their whiz-bang equipment. I've wondered if this is a show-and-tell opportunity for the contractors, free advertising on the show in exchange for a reduced fee.
That's my peeve as well. I'm not a archaeologist/historian/civil engineer but I do know the basics of dirt work and how to find a archaeologist/historian/civil engineer crew and how would be teh best way to work with in a productive manner if I needed to. They seem to not even with their well known backgrounds in industry which is what I don't care for. If you tell me where to dig and likely how deep I have a pretty good idea of what machines to use and how to go about it. These people seem to never have clue, ever.

Then there's the blatant unexplainable occurrences of having such experts there yet they seem to overlook things that are so painfully obvious it's beyond belief. I can take anyone for a walk across any land you can find, wooded or otherwise, and give you a pretty fair estimate to what human activity has been done on the ground in any reasonable historic timeline with enough accuracy to be able to tell most anyone where is likely a good place to look for/dig for something or not.

That island is not that big and given the timelines and money involved so far any competent persons could have walked and 3D mapped every square foot of it several times over by now and come up with some degree of plausible map of what places on the island have likely had some degree of human activity and what have not yet every episode they go looking for stuff it's like it's the first day anyone has set foot on the island in 500 years and the person they have doing the searching has never been outside of a city a day in their lives and doesnt know a tree from a bush.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
Then there's the blatant unexplainable occurrences of having such experts there yet they seem to overlook things that are so painfully obvious it's beyond belief.
Yeah, for instance there was the time they dropped a camera down and missed some shots due to a problem with the camera. A normal person would just walk back out and do it over. Duh. But no, that solution wasn't even discussed.

I've also wondered why they don't enlist volunteers. There's enough interest that I bet at least a dozen and maybe hundreds of people would gladly spend a few days each summer metal detecting, underwater videotaping, doing drone flyovers, in libraries and searching county records, whatever would help.
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
I've also wondered why they don't enlist volunteers.
Probably because the mystery (and their heavily sponsored gravy train) would be solved and finished in a few weeks. :rolleyes:

One of my many cousins married a guy who does film and documentary work plus has had a first hand experience in working behind the scenes on reality TV and these sort of Pseudo-documentary shows. The Bronson Pinchot Project being one of them. http://www.diynetwork.com/shows/the-bronson-pinchot-project (dont remeber the others though. :() All of them are more fake than real by a huge margin.

Back when I was in the oilfields he had asked about if I knew if it was possible to get camera crew on with the company I worked for being he and a number of people he works with wanted to branch off and do real life old school educational documentaries on real modern industry related stuff so that people can see what it's really like without all the staged drama and other BS to help dispel the many myths that are behind oil industry operations and work.`

I mentioned it to the guys I worked with and even went all the way up to our territory manager with the idea and I was surprised how many were for it but ultimately those above us all shot it down for "liability and confidential company operations' reasons which were total BS being the film crews will carry multi 10'a of million dollar liability insurance for themselves if needed plus sign off all liability of the company and crew for their well being plus above all there was not one single thing my company could actually name that was a company secret either.

I think they just didn't want the public seeing how boring and easy our oil field frac work was for the price tags and pay involved. :p
 

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
But, there are exceptions...Connections,
I dare to say "the best of its type, I ever watched". Clever with the right pace from start to end, always.

On a different line, James Lipton's interviews were incredibly interesting on account I really care very little of actors and their craft. Additional note: the music used during the closing titles, found it amazing but couldn find out where to get the record.

The sole TV set here has not even connection to mains much less, antenna. At the hotels only, but so tired because of my job, I never finish watching anything.
 

Dr.killjoy

Joined Apr 28, 2013
1,196
I watched Oak Island for a while but just figured out that the treasure was long gone before these guy where thought up..
There are alot of hints indicating..everything is gone and its a whole waste of time and money..
 

tcmtech

Joined Nov 4, 2013
2,867
I watched Oak Island for a while but just figured out that the treasure was long gone before these guy where thought up..
There are alot of hints indicating..everything is gone and its a whole waste of time and money..
Yep. their treasure now is the season contract renews. Rather explains the continually absurdly poor decision making and refusal to get anyone in to help them that might actually know what they are doing. :(
 
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