Reality Check: No "Treasure" at the End of This Race

Those of you looking for a summer replacement for The Amazing Race would do better than turn to Treasure Hunters, NBC's ambitious yet deeply flawed reality series which premiered last night. I had high expectations for the show as previews made the series seem like a global scavenger hunt tinged with cast-off motifs from production company Imagine's The Da Vinci Code. While the actual treasure at the end of the race isn't clearly defined, fortunately, it won't be Tom Hanks' hairstyle.

My concern was immediately triggered right at the start of the show. My first clue? Treasure Hunters' product placement elements are so overt and obvious that there's no point in even referring to them in ad-speak as "integration." The three items that each team are given at the start of the race are a Motorola RAZR phone (more on that in a sec), a laptop computer that seems to link directly to web search portal Ask.com, and a Visa card. So, no maps, compasses, or astrolabes for these treasure hunters then? No, apparently, a Visa card will come in much more handily; after all it's everywhere they want to be.

It's the cell phone that drove me crazy last night. Besides for the ability to use the phone to call the other teams (why would you want your teams to be able to talk when they're not even bunched together?), all of the clues are transmitted to the teams via this method. Each time they find a clue or an "artifact"(read: prop), their Motorola cells ring and they receive video instructions from host Laird Macintosh. While that would be bad enough, any drama or tension the show might have inadvertently stumbled upon is dissipated every time that phone rings. And it just keeps ringing... for every team, on every task, repeatedly.

Plus, Laird Macintosh is no Phil Keoghan. (Not even close.) Instead, he seems to have gone to the William Shatner School of Performance, where every... line is a... staccato... burst of... melodramatic beats. Either that or he's a robot constructed in the same factory where they built Top Chef's host Katie Lee Joel.

The three-member team structure is awkward and I'm not entirely sure why they had ten teams begin on two opposite sides of the world, only to have them meet up at the end of the first episode. Why withhold from the players the rather large secret that there's a whole other batch of teams if you're going to blow the surprise an hour in? Additionally, I can't say that I am particularly impressed with any of the teams and so far I couldn't care whether any of them stay in the game or are eliminated, rather a large flaw when these shows live or die by the strength and sympathy of their competitors. I was especially hoping that the Geniuses would have been the team to get the boot as they've proven themselves unworthy of their moniker, leading themselves and the Young Professionals to the wrong location (Mt. Roosevelt instead of Mt. Rushmore), walking right past one task (the plane wreckage on Maui), and then helping one team (that would be the Wild Scanlons) solve the artifact "puzzle" and check in before them.

It's those puzzles and tasks that are especially worrisome. Amazing Race has always had a well-balanced mix of physical challenges, puzzle-solving, searching, and building tasks. So far, Treasure Hunters' tasks have been, well, cheesy. Like deciphering Morse Code (hardly a challenge when there's a print out and Morse Code manuals)... or exploring the (fake) wreckage of a presidential plane on Maui--a scenario set up by the show's producers--and then unlocking a box with a key hidden inside a Jeffersonian cane. Do we really need these "story" elements in what basically amounts to a scavenger hunt that's a pale imitation of another Race? Are these Da Vinci Code-style "clues" and "secret societies" necessary to show a tense race around the world? Please tell me that there isn't an albino monk with a taste for self-flagellation lurking around the corner... please.

I can't say that the first two-hour episode of Treasure Hunters made me particularly keen to keep watching the series, especially as it's on opposite FOX's Hell's Kitchen. While the antics in that show might be equally staged by producers, at least host Gordon Ramsay has the sense to emote. Ultimately, trying to look for excitement in this treasure hunt is little more than a wild goose chase.