Review: 'Dave Turin's Lost Mine'

"Gold Rush" has just wrapped up its ninth season and while some of the seasons have been more compelling than others, what has remained consistent is the show's ability to find interesting people to focus on. And more so than any other Discovery series, "Gold Rush" has spun off participants into stand-alone shows of their own, all under the "Gold Rush" banner.

"Gold Rush: White Water" recently wrapped up its second season of not finding much gold and that series stars the so-called "Dakota Boys," who were featured in a couple of early seasons of the mother show. "Gold Rush: Parker's Trail" begins its third season tonight and that's not counting one-off seasons such as "Gold Rush: South America."

If you have watched previous seasons of "Gold Rush," you'll recognize Dave Turin, who stars in the latest iteration of the series. Turin spent a number of years working for Todd Hoffman, who gave him the nickname "Dozer Dave." Turin left Hoffman a couple of seasons ago and if you wondered what happened to him, the answer comes in the form of "Dave Turin's Lost Mine."

The show has been rolled out in a novel way. Tonight's premiere on Discovery finds Turin partnering up with another miner to resurrect a failing mine and hopefully make a fortune. But the network made this a multi-platform launch, so seven mini-episodes of the series have been available for several weeks on the Discovery GO platform. In those ten-minute-long or so episodes, Turin travels the country looking a mine to resurrect. In each episode, he visits a new mine and prospects the claim to see if it's worth going all-in. 

Those episodes were entertaining in part because Turin has been on camera for so long that he's a comfortable presence. He knows what he has to say to explain his actions to the viewer in a way that doesn't seem excessively scripted (even though it might be). And the various claims are fascinating to see because each one has a different backstory and highlights the different type of gold available on the claim. Watching the episodes really gives you a sense of the world of gold mining outside of the typical Alaska/Yukon axis. And it's both interesting and a bit sad to see the wide variety of people who have went all in financially to resurrect an old gold mine. In many cases, Turin finds them at the end of their financial resources and there's a part of you that wants Turin to be able to help them all.

It might be a bit of a spoiler, but the digital season ends with Turin finding a suitable mine only to discover the man presently working the land had let the mining lease lapse. So the last shot in episode seven is of Turin driving towards the landowner's home, hoping to negotiate a deal.

Tonight's series premiere on Discovery presumably picks up the story at that spot, although the network didn't provide me with a review copy ahead of time. To be honest, I'm not sure "Dave Turin's Lost Mine" would have been high on my much-watch list under normal circumstances. But having seen the digital episodes, I am looking forward to seeing how this series plays out. And with any luck, Turin will have better luck than the Dakota Boys has on "Gold Rush: White Water."

"Gold Rush: Dave Turin's Lost Mine" premieres Friday, April 5th at 10PM ET/PT on Discovery.