Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo

Danny Trejo is 80 years old but he has still the charisma and he hosts this series. Each episode has bunch of different cases related to mysterious findings unearthed from all around the world. Hence it makes it so much fun to watch in particularly if you are into archaeology, geography, and history. The main difference between these series from History's Greatest Mysteries and UnXplained is related to high emphasis on archaeology. As a matter of fact, it is absolutely fantastic to see different cases from the world. In short, I recommend everyone to watch this series. Danny Trejo is the man !

This production values of this series are unbelievably awful. Each episode consists of numerous historical segments narrated by a group of random talking heads, none of whom seem to have any expertise in the subject at hand, they just appear to be reading a script as the segment skips from one talker to the next. And, just as a segment appears to be getting interesting, that segment suddenly ends and a new segment starts. There is never a resolution to any of the segments.

Then we have Danny Trejo as host, tying the segments together, but half the time he's talking into the wrong camera. It's quite annoying to have someone speaking to you and not making eye contact. So offputting and unprofessional. Who is he supposed to be talking to? Did Johnny Carson deliver his monologue glancing to one side, or looking directly into the camera?

To improve the series, each segment needs to have a logical conclusion with the subject matter being resolved. And rather than five or six talking heads (always the same people) narrating each story, assign just one to research the segment subject and narrate the whole thing. Or hire an actual expert on each subject to narrate that segment, because there doesn't seem to be any connection between the talking heads and the segment topic. You may as well have Danny Trejo narrate the entire show... of course all the while looking into the wrong camera.

Ok, so the idea here is to tell interesting, mysterious tales of items unearthed, mainly by run of the mill people digging in their own back yards, so to speak. The stories and the "treasures" have been covered by other shows over the years, but some are cool and worth another look, and others you might never have seen at all, so I believe they are worth telling again.

The problem with this comes how the stories are told. You have a host, Danny Trejo, and you have a narrator, but you also have 30+ other people (actors, historians, Jeopardy game show contestants, etc.), and 4 or 5 of them read 3 to 5 sentences each during each segment. None of these guests seem to have any relationship to the story; they're just reading off a few facts. I'm not sure why the camera needs to be filming the special guests at all, since they aren't part of the mystery, and apparently the producers know that looking at the special guests is boring, so they shoot each guest, as they're talking, from the point of view of the top of their heads, or from the side, and occasionally with the guest looking into the camera. I'm not sure if they think it's artistic or not, but it's just weird. I can usually make it through each episode, but I do fast-forward thru the host and guests because I find the format so peculiar.

Typically, they only shoot Danny from two directions; looking into the camera, and from the side when he's looking into a different camera (maybe?). Either way, Danny doesn't have many lines or discuss many "mysteries", and his camera angles are just weird too.

I think this show is a cookie-cutter version of "The Unbelievable with Dan Akroyd". Both of these shows (and I can think of a couple others almost identical) would be much better with 1 or 2 experts discussing each segment, or 1 expert discussing each segment with the host.

The show is great; however, I have an issue with its format. It has been used frequently and is becoming stale. We don't need numerous extras providing commentary, as most of what they say could easily be presented by the host or through voice-over. This issue is not limited to this show; many other programs on History and similar channels also use the same format. I would urge the producers to reduce the amount of commentary and perhaps - try to find a format that does not rely on this type of nonsense.

The topics are interesting and certainly worth watching. How amazing that the History Channel keeps finding these pearls of wisdom!