Final Thoughts from the Expedition Unknown Episode “Captain Morgan’s Lost Gold”

1. Overall, I think Josh Gates’ new show is decent and I have yet to miss an episode. However, there are some episodes that are definitely better than others and this one isn’t one of them. The overall adventure just seemed to be a little too concise (it mostly consists of one underwater dive and him riding a train) and didn’t have some of the same magic I’m used to seeing from his shows.

2. One thing in particular this episode seemed to be missing was his infamous side adventures. Unless you count getting attacked by ants while helping remove a fallen tree and a short visit to a native village, there honestly wasn’t anything too memorable about this expedition, especially when compared to some of the other adventures he’s been on this season.

3. Another thing I noticed about this particular episode was the limited history we were given about Morgan. When he searched for Jesse James’ gold, for example, we were given a pretty detailed history about the bandit. Morgan’s history was pretty much just limited to his time in Panama with only a brief reference to him becoming Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica later in his life. I thought this was disappointing because the historical facts he usually refers to often are as interesting as his adventure.

4. I will give the episode some points for his scuba diving adventure simply because it was pretty neat seeing those old sunken ships and I did learn a little something about the procedure for mapping and examining underwater artifacts like that. And, even though they didn’t find what Gates came there looking for, the fact they found another ship and likely identified it was still pretty cool.

5. One thing about his scuba diving adventure though. There were times when it looked like he was in front of a green screen with a fake background rather than actually out on the water. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. But, I certainly hope that wasn’t the case.

6. I did think the part with them transporting that wooden chest to the x-ray machine was kind of cool too, mostly because it was somewhat funny to watch and because it did show some of the difficulty someone might face if they were trying to preserve an artifact that was hundreds of years old and very fragile. Of course, to tell you the truth, if it were me, I probably would have just “accidentally” dropped it to see what was inside. It’s not like there weren’t hundreds more of those chests still under the water.

Final Opinion: There were some redeeming things about this episode. However, overall, it was somewhat of a disappointment when compared to many of the others that I’ve seen from this series so far. In other words, there were some entertaining moments. But, for the most part at least, this is an episode that isn’t overly memorable.

My Grade: C