Treasure Quest - Reality Show?

It is difficult to believe that more people haven’t commented on the interview I conducted with Captain Keith Plaskett about the reality of Treasure Quest. He made some very interesting comments about the way the show was cast, which is his word. It was cast. They had a “screen test” with the members of the cast to ensure that they could work well together on the screen.

Keith Plaskett

We talked about the attempt to buy a ten-thousand-dollar silver bar that was allegedly from the Treasure of the Trinity, but instead paid a thousand just to learn where it had been found. We are told that this was the storyline, that no one actually knew where that bar had come from but it led them to a deserted mission.

We were told that we had to understand that they, the producers, put together a storyline and that they would stick to that storyline. That they would make the story do this or do that or whatever it had to do. In other words, the producers weren’t following a trek into the jungle to find a treasure wherever it might lead, but they had a storyline prepared that they wanted to follow that had no real treasure at the end. A story. A tale. Not an adventure.

I mentioned the trek through the jungle to get to the mission where that silver bar had apparently been found. I noted, given the location of the mission, the paved highway that ran passed it, that all of that jungle trek had been unnecessary. They could have driven there in a bus.

We hear that at that point the cast didn’t really know what was going to happen from day to day. They were just following directions provided by the producers who apparently did know what was going to happen next.

I pointed out that Google Earth gave us a picture of that mission, of the town nearby, and that I had learned that there was a Sheridan Resort Inn maybe ten miles from the mission. I’m told that all that jungle trek and the searching around the mission had something to do with the producers and the storyboard and did not develop naturally from the clues. Rather than call it reality TV it should be renamed as entertainment TV.

At 31:00 minutes in the interview, we are told, “We didn’t get our scripts or storyline or whatever until the next day or the day before. Late at night they would give us a what’s going to happen tomorrow type of thing. We just followed the story sheets.”

Given that the Sheridan Resort Hotel had been so close to the mission, I wondered if they actually stayed in tents. We learn that sometimes they did. He said they didn’t stay at the Sheridan but in some kind of hostel. He also said that they were bussed in.

These are just some of the highlights of that interview. I am not aware of anyone learning these sorts of things from one of the primary members of the team in other interviews.

He also provided some insight into the treasure found at the end of the season two. It doesn’t seem that it had been in the water all that long, for whatever that is worth.

The clues about the reality of the show are all there for us to see, from the isolated tribe that had once guarded the treasure, some dressed in Old Navy T-shirts, to the highway that ran by the mission that was a tourist destination. It should be clear to anyone paying attention that the reality had been left out of this reality show. This was no more real than the 1960’s movie McKenna’s Gold, in which Gregory Peck chased the Lost Adams gold mine.

I mention all this simply because I was astonished that more people didn’t react to the interview. The interest is high in these shows. I know because I see more and more of them on the cable. Now we have a search for a treasure that a Japanese general allegedly hid in the Philippines. But the truth is that many of these treasures are just stories that have no basis in reality. They are based on guesses, rumors, legends, and more than a couple of charlatans attempting to extract the real treasure out of the investors dumb enough to support them… Here, the treasure is in the ratings and the advertiser dollars. I predict that in the end, the new iteration of Treasure Quest will end with no treasure being found because, once again, there really is no treasure.

Well, that’s my opinion anyway.