Gold Rush is currently in its 14th season, with spin offs that have covered the search for gold in other parts of the world, so the producers must be doing something right. One of the most intriguing questions about the show is how much of it is real.
Real Gold Rush vs Reality TV
We’ll never get a full answer but there’s one thing we can assume – Gold Rush is definitely not 100% real. According to Jimmy Dorsey, the Gold Rush crew edited footage to create heroes and villains and pump up the drama of storylines. Shocking!
Common as that tactic may be, there are other Gold Rush tactics that raise automatic questions about creditable ethics. One questionable tactic, for instance, involves water usage and water rights that are an essential part of the gold mining process.
In the real version of reality TV, government reps went out to the filming site to show the cast and crew how to divert water from a stream rather than tapping into groundwater.
That’s not exactly a sexy plot device, though, so the producers decided that the process of getting water from the stream without following the rules could be a considerable source of drama.
They ended up getting fined for their actions. According to the rumors the producers were annoyed when the matter got settled amicably.
The incentives the show offers are another issue that’s been surrounded by controversy. Reality TV is notorious for creating all kinds of wild incentives, the goal being to get cast members to do things that are borderline insane, but highly entertaining.
For Gold Rush, that means neglecting maintenance on the mining equipment. The idea is to create breakdowns that are highly dramatic, especially for the inexperienced miners that are typically featured on the show.
Dorsey has been a gold mine when it comes to revealing behind the scenes details about Gold Rush. He claims the show is highly scripted, even the faceoff between Dorsey and another miner named Greg that actually left Dorsey with broken ribs.
It’s all entertaining stuff, and it’s part of the reason that Gold Rush has developed a following. People will do a seemingly endless array of stupid, dangerous things to get rich quick, and Gold Rush certainly knows its way around stupid, dangerous things.
