History graveyard
At the time I'm writing this, Wednesday saves History Channel. There is a couple of WWII documentaries and a rerun of "Dogfights". That's it. Other shows are pure junk. As long as they are going to market those junk shows as "history being made" I'm going to bias my view of them based on how close they match that slogan."Ice truckers" don't. "Pawn stars" don't. "UFO files" don't (gosh!). "Ax men" don't. No one can come and say "hey they mention something from history now and then" with a straight face and put it into something that's called History Channel.
"American pickers" by no means belong to this channel. They do however share the mentality of the channel's management. Scouting the country searching for every odd part of junk they're hoping to sell. Surely, some of that junk is of some historical value. But without proper historical context it hardly means a thing. If they, for instance, present a gun used in the Civil War they'll be mostly about whether it's authentic and how much they can get for it in the collector's market. You won't hear anything of when it was started being produced, who used it, did it have an impact on war efforts, how it was developed etc. None of that. Because they don't know! They only know, or think they know how much is it worth today. Hardly a history lesson, is it?
Apart from that it's a decent show. It could fit in some lifestyle channel or something. It features two shady characters which are actually fun to watch. They go on about the country trying to buy as much of the useful junk as they can for as low a price as they can get. Their challenges amount to no more than trying to outsmart a suspicious seller. And that's a rarity because most of those sellers are hoarders that are happy to get rid of some of their junk at any price.
What's interesting is that it is well produced (for a reality show), well directed and the two have an interesting rapport between them. All in all a good watch, you won't exactly waste that hour watching an episode, there'll be entertainment alright.
However, within that hour you'll learn absolutely nothing about history.
score 2/10
CherryBlossomBoy 19 October 2011
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2505376/14475
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