Treasure Hunters

Suave plans conferences for a living, so she's often given fun event invites by hotels and tourism boards that want to attract her group for meetings. Atlantic City offered up 1 night at a hotel and the Madonna concert. A hotel chain here in DC offered 2 tickets to the Treasure Hunters season finale last night held at the National Building Museum. I think Atlantic City's got a better notion of how to impress, but that's fine, being part of the live studio audience for an NBC show was an entertaining way to spend a Monday night.

Neither of us had seen Treasure Hunters. It's not really my type of show... with teams running around on a dramatic scanvenger hunt. As far as Reality TV goes, I like the Bachelor, America's Next Top Model, American Idol, and The Look for Less. I've seen one season of Survivor and that was a past season on DVD after Elizabeth Hasselback started on The Look for Less.

But anyways.

The National Building Museum is gorgeous. Truly stunning. My roommate informed me that it's the location of the Corporate Executive Board "prom" every year. It looks like a great place for a prom.

I sat next to a bright, blonde mommy with her three snub nosed daughters in front of us. NBC replayed the show's last episode from 8pm until 9pm. The woman seated next to me leaned over to Suave, "What company are you with?" "The hotels." "Oh, what hotels did you own that were on the show?" "No, I plan conferences, so I'm a client of the hotels." "Do you own the Waldorf Astoria?" "No, I don't work for the hotel at all." "Oh, have you seen the show?" "No." "Oh, okay." She turned away.

A man in acid wash Levi's and a flannel with a microphone walked up the stairs. He waved to the woman and her daughters.

Damn. She's probably the wife of this dude and now he's losing his job because no one's watching the show.

It sucks that I worked in finance at a TV show for 2 years. I know how much these people make. Jib Operator- around $600 a day, two days a week. Associate Producer- $250 a day. Producer- $250-$400 a day. Production Assistant- $150 a day. No health benefits, usually. Anyways.

I then felt the need to comment. "So, who are the girls voting for?" "No one votes on the show." Damnit. "Okay, who are the routing for?" "Oh, we'd not watched the show ourselves. My cousin is a Writer/ Producer on it and lives in LA. We live here. He sent us the DVDs to watch so we could come see him. They were for the Miss USA girls until they got kicked off, but they think Air Force will win." This show's got pageant girls and military all in one?

Suave asked the woman on her other side if she'd seen the show. "Once."

I giggled and whispered to Suave, "I thought it was a rip off of Amazing Race." The mommy heard me. "They're all similar," she said through her frown. Ooops.

So the show was pretty good. In the one episode we saw, I actually formed a favorite. The team I liked won, by the way, the Geniuses. Not that you were watching the show. I don't think anyone was watching the show. Not even the Writer's cousin. The final key to the treasure was hidden in a tube that required a 5 letter word to open it. The teams were there for 10 hours trying to figure it out. It wasn't even something cool. It was something stupid, frankly. FS Key (Francis Scott Key). Blah. I wanted it to be PEACE or something better.

After the finale finished showing, the show was live from the museum. It's been 5 months since they finished taping. The chick from the Air Force team was very pregnant (if you can't win, get knocked up, I guess). The treasure was in gold pieces at the end of taping. No one knew how much the treasure was worth. I guess $500,000. Suave guessed $1 million. Oh, no, $3 million! I think that's one of the largest jackpots I've seen on TV. Too bad no one is watching the show.