Reviews Of Blah: The Curse of Oak Island S05E01

Synopsis

Peril strikes during a daring dive as brothers Rick and Marty Lagina double down on their efforts to locate the original Money Pit.

What I thought

We’re back! After what seems like months (it has been actually) we’re back after another winter of discontent in Nova Scotia with an episode packed full and bursting to the seams with ... minutes. Yes, it’s a whole hour and 19 minutes of juicy recaps, tens of different camera angles to show you the same thing and our resident treasure searchers constantly turning their heads to look at something. But wait – what’s this – there’s a new narrator! What on money pit earth? Blimey. What did they do to the last guy? Anyhow, at least the new chap isn’t that annoying but has a heavily American/Canadian accent this time, when I’m sure previous years they gave us a British voice? I dunno, my memory is rubbish and it’s hard to recall the previous season, let along them actually finding much last year. Oh wait ...

Rick is driving back to Oak Island with Jim as his wingman who informs him that the Island is a disaster. I could have told him that. Anyhow, it’s even worse now because there’s been successive storms that have destroyed roads and levelled trees. It sounds grim. It’s certainly not as the messenger of doom described but it’s not good either. The road on the south coast joining one part to the area of the money pit is gone. Quicker than you can drill another hole in the pit itself, the storms have turned a road into a beach, and not one you’d build sandcastles on. It’s literally a road to nowhere in many respects. It’s time to call in Billy with his heavy machinery as he has less than a week to get that road back before more heavy drilling dudes turn up to work on the Money Pit again. Get to it Billy!

Within ten minutes of the episode we’re back in the War Room. It’s like we’re all together again for Christmas or something. That room just needs a nice log fire. There’s more turning of heads than chatter in this meeting as they call up Marty on the Skype to update him on what we already know about the road. Apparently, also, the plan this year is to not do anymore drilling holes big enough to chuck a diver down, but smaller holes – lots of them – like, 40 of them. If it’s not safe beneath their feet, it certainly won’t be after those holes go down. With these 40 holes they hope to locate the original money pit – unless they are completely the wrong place, that is. Anyways, there’s even worse news to come as we learn of the deeply sad news of the sudden death of Craig Tester’s son. Much like the death of Mr Nolan last season, this is a pretty upsetting few minutes to witness. I feel for everyone involved, especially the Tester family. This did get me thinking though that we’re told every episode that the legend of 7 people dying before the Island reveals its secret and we’ve lost 6 already but yet we lost Mr Nolan and no one said that was number 7. It’s of course not the time to bring that up on the show but it does make you wonder if the deaths for this legend to be true must actually be when actively in action searching for treasure. Certainly, sadly, lots of people, more than 6 have perished in relation to Oak Island over the years. Hopefully, not many more.

Also within the War Room, the gang decide to use the storms destruction to their advantage and have one big bonfire. No, they don’t think that, but instead call upon The Metal Mickey Metal Master himself, Gary Drayton. If the surface has been disturbed, then so might Gary ... by gold. We then find Gary and a wingman at Isaac’s Point on the far bottom right of the island in woodland, which is an odd place to go looking when the waves would have disturbed the outer regions, not in the woods. Sure, trees have come down, but Gary isn’t anywhere near them to start of with. He wants to metal detect where no one has before, which also isn’t what the gang suggested. Anyhow ...

Back in the Money Pit and we’re at C1 where they’ve called in Camera Guy Jeff who has a 360 degree camera. Well, it’s a camera that can turn 360 degrees. Down they go into C1 looking for inspiration, a clue, hope, a sixth season and a shiny gold object that we’d seen before. It’s crystal clear down C1 after 9 months of nothing happening down there. It’s a joy to actually see something, even if it’s just rock. I hope they stay away from the bottom and all that silt. Oh crap, they want to look at the bottom. Thankfully they can zoom in from a distance. What’s that? Close up of their faces and close ups of an object which they are convinced is manmade but from my untrained eyes could be a small piece of seaweed.

Back at Isaac Point and Gary and his wingman find an old 1900s Axe head just under the ground before eventually picking up what they think may be a coin ... or not. We’re not actually any clearer on this metallic object even by the end of the episode as it’s never mentioned again.

Two days later and the gang are going through spoils from GAL1 which were dredged up mechanically last year. Emotionally we’re joined by Craig and Jack, as well as Marty and Alex. Within these spoils later in day, Gary, and some of the boys locate a metal spike. Now this is a decent size and later referred to as a rose head nail, possibly from 1700s when the almighty expedition on the Money Pit last happened. It’s not overly exciting, but it’s significant in their hopes to find out where the heck the Money Pit was before the site was nuked by the last team to actually do any work there back in the 1970s. One nail though and they call it a day.

In the War Room and we have a right old party with diver Mike Huntley, Jeff the camera guy and Frank a video expert in the room with some of the main Oak Island gang. They use Frank’s technology to enhance the video from the earlier camera in C1 and the older video of that shiny gold object. I’m not impressed with the enhancement which leaves things still highly ambiguous to me. Let’s face it, the team were going back down C1 regardless of this video enhancement.

Sure enough, it’s time to dive into C1 once again. Down goes Mike Huntley on his chair now that South Road is restored to get all the kit to the Money Pit area: paramedics and a decompression chamber. It doesn’t take long until poor Mike can’t see Jack down there. Which is probably because he’s up top. No, I jest, not that Jack but nonetheless it soon becomes impossible to see anything once Mike is in the “cave”. Using inspiration, Mike decides to get out of chair and go on foot; everyone seems to agree. Because, that’s not going to make the silt worse, right?? Hmmmm. Mike starts chiselling away at some metal he says is in the wall. Seemed like a waste of time to me, when he only had less than half hour to get down there and then get the hell back up. Sure enough, he gets no where and ends up scooping up lots of sediment into a bag. He’s out of time though and so once on ground has to go into decompression chamber for 71 minutes. Yikes. After he’s confirmed to be ok, they look through the bag contents which contain ... drum roll ... muck. Yup, can’t see anything but dirty earth stuff. They also find nothing with a metal detector but will wash the contents up and have another look later.

After a trip to 90 year old Dan Blankenship’s house to chat about Money Pit plans and show off that nail, it’s into the War Room for the last time this episode. Marty says they’ve had a “Great Start”, which makes me think he should be a politician because his positive spin on things is amazing. It’s not been that fantastic in my opinion but after taking time out to look back on Drake Tester’s time on the island, we’re left with a solemn end to the opener. It’s tough to see everyone so cut up over the sad loss of Drake.

The ‘Coming Soon’ bit at the end promises a HECK OF A LOT! We see a massive stone lifted up, a cave, a sign of the Knights of the Templar, a key and a box being opened! Will it be as exciting and significant as it promises or another season of treading water?

Rating 6/10 - A decent feature-length opener that once again promises the world.