A couple of years ago ghost hunting was all the rage, and every cable network had to have it’s own ghost show. Ghosts are still popular, but the latest TV craze are the auction shows. At last count, I’ve come across five new shows on the cable channels, some of which looks suspiciously like each other.
I guess the granddaddy of all of these shows was PBS’s Antiques Roadshow, which started out as a BBC show in 1979. People bring in their treasures to see what they are worth. The prices were often inflated, but the idea that someone might have hidden treasure worth tons of money was quite compelling, and that concept seems to have driven the other shows that followed.
Another oldie-but-goodie was Cash in the Attic. Again, this got its start on BBC, and an American version appears on HGTV. In this show the hosts and appraisers help people go through their homes to look for items to put up for auction, usually with some goal in mind. Various antiques in the home are evaluated, until enough are collected to meet that goal.
I often had a problem with this show. I can understand selling off possessions if one needs to downsize. However, selling off family heirlooms to take a trip to Disney or buy a used car always seemed like squandering those funds.
And that brings us to the new crop of shows…