I’m not a fan of “Reality TV” shows¹, so why am I still enamored with The Curse of Oak Island?
I honestly have no idea!
The History Channel original, which returns tonight at 9 p.m. for its seventh season, should have worn me out. Hell, last season turned monotony into an art form, and bored me to the point that I skipped the season finale.
Who watches 21 episodes of a show only to skip the grand finale? This guy, apparently.
It’s been half a year since the season 6 finale, and I find myself curious what I missed. And what happened over this past summer, anyway? Is the show actually going to make some kind of progress toward a resolution in season 7? I excitedly checked out the trailers percolating online for the last month, hoping for answers. Surprise, surprise: Answers are being promised. All roads lead to the swamp, apparently.
For the uninitiated: The Curse of Oak Island is a “non-fiction” drama that follows treasure-hunting brothers Rick and Marty Lagina and their oh-so-friendly band of true believers as they punch 170-foot holes into a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia. The Laginas are Michiganders, but the whole enterprise shimmers with a non-specific Canadian blandness. Along those lines, there’s a comfort in watching deep-pocketed yahoos flail around a tiny island, convinced that Shakespeare’s “lost manuscripts” and the Ark of the Covenant are one steel caisson dig away.
The Lagina’s have unearthed some interesting finds for sure. The show has made endless hay out of an alleged 16th Century cross that seems like it mighta-kinda-sorta had some relation to the Knights Templar — but who can say for sure? They’ve also pulled human bones, hand-cut wood, pottery and book binding out of deep holes that should not contain any of those items. It’s all just tantalizing enough to keep viewers like me coming back.
Or it was, anyway.
Season Six of The Curse of Oak Island was a stale, broken affair. The “cast” spent a huge chunk of the episodes excavating a coastal area, repeatedly turning up very old and seemingly out of place construction that remains unidentified. What is the “U-shaped structure” that’s been endlessly discussed over the course of the last few seasons, and which was unearthed early in Season 6? Still no idea. At this point, Vikings seem a more likely culprit for the island's anomalies than a bunch of persecuted yet well-heeled European knights.
In some sense, the show is a victim of its own success. Season 6 featured more episodes than previous years (22 vs. 18 in Season 5, the previous high-water mark), and the pacing suffered. Details were hashed and rehashed to fill time. Whole episodes would come and go with absolutely nothing happening. Sure, the members of “The Fellowship of the Dig” are interesting dudes, but they’re not compelling enough on their own. I need the promise of vast riches hidden just out of view.
History Channel and the show’s producers clearly got the memo, and the promotion for Season 7 is leaning into answers. To that end, we already know seismic testing in the swamp revealed the outlines of something large and out of place. (A “Spanish Galleon” is floated as one possible solution — a long-shot if you ask me, but also fun to contemplate.) The coastal excavations also promise to give up more secrets this year. The famed “Money Pit” area, where so much of the early seasons were set, has faded in importance — does anyone really believe the gang is on the cusp of pulling anything but dirt out of one of their many holes? I doubt it.
I will be tuning in tonight for the season premiere, even if I have a certain “won’t get fooled again” attitude. Why bother? I guess I really like Rick and Marty Lagina. I’m not comfortable admitting this, honestly. They are the very definition of dorky, rich white guys, and there’s a real stink of privilege around getting to spend half a year chasing lines scribbled on some parchment. But they are also presented as good guys with an obsession, and in that I relate. Obsessed people really are some of my favorite people.
So good luck Rick, Marty and the rest of the Oak Island team. I doubt you’re ever going to dig up buried treasure, but I also genuinely hope you found a way to make your Quixotic hunt a little more compelling for Season 7. I'll be watching.
¹ - Ok, yes, I have watched a lot of “Survivor” in my life, starting with the first few seasons, and then picking it back up after my wife revealed her love for the show. After maybe 10 straight seasons of appointment viewing to start this decade, we’ve missed the last 5 or 6. I can’t get into it anymore, and believe they ruined the show with too many gimmicks. I will also passionately detail every moment of the first season of Spike TV’s “The Joe Schmo Show” — which remains one of the greatest parodies in the history of TV, and holds the distinction of introducing viewers to Kristen Wiig (and promptly concussing her) years before she hit SNL. I'll end up writing about The Joe Schmo Show eventually. It's a skeleton key for understanding everything about what our culture became between 2000 and 2020.