stickbender
Love the show...I started metal detecting in 1971 at the age of 14. Ringy and the King were using words that I can relate. They are down to earth,Sure they get a little crazy....so what. I felt the same way when I was pulling treasure out of the ground.... I still hunt at 60..Great hobby... great show....
JohnnySpotlight
There's nothing "wrong" with this show. It doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't try to be something it's not. That said, considering the average viewers palette and how television programming has progressed over the last decade (IE complex drama's like the Shield and Breaking Bad, or the depth of Nova and Cosmos) this show offers very little in keeping my attention. The cast of Diggers are positive and enthusiastic with boyish love for what they do, however I cannot understand why. This is a show that perhaps a toddler or history buff may have on in the background, but not seek out as the primary form of entertainment. There are multiple seasons available so maybe I'm missing something...
countjimula
Let me say first that I'm a avid metal detectorist and would love a show like this if it wasn't so cheesy. 1 year before the show Diggers, I recorded a metal detecting hunt with a professional videographer and sent a treatment to NatGeo TV, A&E and Discovery. At the time, there was no show like it on TV. I never heard back from any of the said networks. Nothing ventured, nothing gained I guess. Thought a treasure hunting/metal detecting show would make for some interesting TV. I'm not nor have I ever been a conspiracy theorist, but I'd bet they liked the idea and ripped it off. Guess I wasn't zany enough for them so they needed a couple overly fake zealous detectorists finding pre-buried crap to make the show entertaining.This show does nothing to champion this awesome hobby but manages to perpetuate the image that detectorists are an odd, eccentric bunch of nut jobs - not to mention it's a 60 minute advertising for Garrett metal detectors. No doubt the single reason they're suddenly so dominant in the industry.
CherryBlossomBoy
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.
