Watching "Mummy Chasers" on History Channel, and....

[Paul F.]

What could have been an interesting premise (following Dr. Zahi Hawass of Egyptian Antiquities) around for 6 months to different sites...

Instead, what a monumentally contrived, over-hyped, melodramatized, crock.

Going into a tomb just unearthed, and wow... gee.. there's a cameraman aready in there to film Dr. Hawass coming down the rope.

I'm not saying that the camera guy and Zoe the (very cute... IMHO) fieldwork student were "intentionally" locked in the Step Pyramid for 7 hours, but the "rescue" there had some very "conveniently" placed camera guys too. And did I mention that Zoe was the "wrong" fieldwork student? Yeah, some sort of paperwork mixup... "Clair" from france didn't show up, but Zoe from Canada did... her papers in order.
I DO suspect television producer shenanigans there.

IF they tone down the "Reality TV" schlock, I think it could be a darn interesting look at field archeology in Egypt.

I don't know how long this series has been going... I think this might be the premiere?
Hope they get their stuff together... I miss when the History Channel actually had shows about HISTORY!

[hal]

Even the BBC, formerly THE best in TV documentary makers are taking the 'action' approach and turning out lame, lame, lame docu-drama or just plain old crap reality TV instead of good ol documentary.

You wanna know about ancient Egypt? I got a HUGE lecture series on the subject, but you knew that already...

[rgG]

Just watched this, the premier episode, and thought some of the same things as Paul. Way too much fake drama and Zahi Hawass comes off looking like an ass much of the time. Too bad they decided to make this look more like an MTV production than a History Channel one.

[Rolando]

I really hope you meant the 2nd from Left

[Paul F.]

Rolando;

Well, it's a female... but I'm not sure in that glamour picture without the dirt and sweaty hat, if thats here, of if that's the "other" female fellowship student.

hal;
I haven't forgotten :-) Just gotten behind on things.

rgG;
I'm getting the impression that Dr Hawass has a rather strange sense of humor, in addition to a bit of a temper... I think some of what he says is in jest, but I think his sense of humor is lost in the translation (literally..since he's not a native english speaker... even though is english is pretty darn good). I knew a Libyan gentleman about 15 years ago, and his sense of humor was similar; "you're an idiot.. you're just going to screw that up". It took a while before we figured out from his voice inflection when he was kidding, and when he was serious.

[AllGold]

If they want to draw interest, they could just put british historian Tessa Dunlop on. I saw her on an another archaeology show--I think it might have been the Lost Pyramid. Smokin'!