Thursday, November 07, 2019

Oak Island, Episode 1 - Disappoints... Again


I’m truly sorry but this show has jumped the shark more than once. Last night, as they were tearing up the swamp and finding rocks that were smooth, they keep talking about pirate ships or treasures that might have been purposefully sunk in the swamp. My question is, “Why does it have to be a treasure ship?”

Everything they find leads them to the conclusion that the treasure is real. They make no room for the very distinct possibility that the landing of ships on the island has nothing to do with hiding a treasure there. They are looking for the
Oak Island, obviously.
remains of a ship in the swamp and assume it would be a treasure galleon. They just use everything to prove their point apparently unaware of confirmation bias.

They find a button that their expert says was made sometime between 1650 and 1750. It proves that someone was on the island decades before the boys discovered the alleged money pit. It proves nothing of the sort. It just proves that someone had a button manufactured in the late 17th or 18th century but it tells us nothing about when it was lost on the island.

That’s the thing that I have noticed over the years. They just can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea that there are alternative explanations for what they are finding on the island. If Joy Steele is right, then what they are finding is more likely to confirm her theory than suggest a booby-trapped money pit. Her theory explains all that they are finding today. Her theory, as I have noted in the past, suggests that Oak Island was used as a repair facility for British ships in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. By the time the boys arrived with their picks and shovels to begin this two centuries plus search, the British had left… but their trash remains.

In the years since the Laginas began to tear up the island, they have found nothing to suggest a treasure was ever hidden there. They don’t seem to wonder about the engineering ability of those who allegedly hide the treasure. They don’t wonder how they created the money pit, how they made the booby traps, or how they would have recovered the treasure when they came back for it. In all the years and all the various attempts to find the treasure, no one had actually found anything to suggest the treasure was there. It all goes back to the teenagers who spent a summer on a wild goose chase for an imagined treasure.

As I have said in the past, I was enthused about this. I was hoping they would find a treasure because, well, that’s the most exciting solution. But I now think they have found an answer. There is no treasure but there is too much money to be had with the program. Obviously, History is making money even with the millions spent on everything they have done. Obviously, there is an audience for the show and the ratings are high. This will probably go on until the public loses interest, they start lose money, or the ratings collapse. And yes, I’ll be there at the end. I hate to say it, I’m still interested in the final outcome, but there is no treasure.

4 comments:

  1. I enjoy the crew and hope they find at least something of historic value but I've heard the intro so many times my interest is waned by the time the show begins it's really became tiresome with absolutely no significant value to anyone that's viewed the show more than a handful of times and it goes on what seems like an eternity !

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  2. So little happens on this show that I fast forward through not only the commercials but also the filler. Only then does it become bearable. I do not enjoy most of the characters on the "fellowship of the dig".

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  3. My question is, “Why does it have to be a treasure ship?”

    Well where would the ratings be if they proclaimed it was just a shipyard? And really, they are way too invested in this thing for it to be anything else.

    Whatever it is, the only truly sorry thing is they have wasted their lives looking for this treasure, even if its there, was it worth it? Maybe its just been their summers and they havent obsessed over it as much as Im thinking

    Either way, luckily we just get to sit back and watch.

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  4. Aye ... the big wheel has turned and shows like this ensure that yet another generation is enspelled by this 'mystery'. I for one am quite sure that there are many islands which drew no small amount of interest from sea-farers and gained an amount of historical objects discarded or lost. "Let's dig around until we find some so we can do a show called Mostly Wank!"
    Thanks for this post Kevin.

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