The new season of "Gold Rush," the top-rated series on the Discovery Channel, begins with a March 2017 encounter between Todd Hoffman and Parker Schnabel, who are both attending a construction trade show in Las Vegas.
Hoffman, who's known for his optimistic predictions, announces that he's aiming to mine 5,000 ounces of gold in the new "Gold Rush" season, because now he's got "the best ground we've ever had."
"That's what you said last year," an unimpressed Schnabel replies.
Clearly, Schnabel has been paying attention. As any "Gold Rush" viewer knows, every season Hoffman -- who lives in Sandy, Oregon -- sets gold-mining goals some call ambitious and others call over the top.
True to form, the two-hour "Gold Rush" Season 8 premiere, which airs Friday, Oct. 13 on Discovery, features Hoffman again vowing that his crew will dig up 5,000 ounces worth of gold.
It's the same promise Hoffman made in Season 7, which was a whopping disappointment. Hoffman started the season leading his crew, which includes other men from Oregon, to a mine in Baker County, Oregon. That turned out to be a bust. After crew defections and assorted other problems, Hoffman moved his operation to Colorado.
The season ended with Hoffman falling far short of his 5,000-ounce goal, and Gresham's Dave Turin, long Hoffman's right-hand man, getting into a brawl with Trey Poulson, who was doing some work for the Hoffman team. When the season finale aired, Turin appeared in a special that looked back at Season 7. In a surprise announcement, Turin said he was leaving the show.
But Hoffman's not the only crew leader on "Gold Rush." His chief rival is the 22-year-old Schnabel, who, as he points out in the Season 8 premiere, has bested Hoffman in gold totals for the past four seasons. Then there's Tony Beets, who owns the land in the Klondike that Schnabel has been mining. Beets is known for his thick accent (he was born in the Netherlands), which frequently requires subtitles, his bleepworthy vocabulary and his tough-as-nails approach to business.
As Season 8 begins, the usual gang are up to their usual tricks. On the Hoffman crew, there's no real mention of Turin's absence. Instead, there are more equipment problems. And, in a storyline we're likely to get more of, Hofffman's 18-year-old son, Hunter, is moved to the forefront, as he takes on more responsibility.
For example, early on, Hunter is challenging his father's decision-making. "You might be good at eating burgers," the 18-year-old says, "but you're not good at putting washplants together."
Hoffman then muses "maybe it's time" to shift some control to his offspring. "I'm getting fat and old."
Meanwhile, up in the Klondike, Schnabel is chafing under the terms of his lease with Beets. Instead of paying Beets a high royalty rate on what he mines, Schnabel wants to get his own claim, and investigates how to make that happen.
Oh, and just in case we miss it, another of the season's themes is stated more than once. In that Las Vegas encounter, Hoffman bets Schnabel 100 ounces of gold, worth about $100,000, that his crew will mine more gold than Schnabel's outfit. With the wager in place, both Hoffman and Schnabel keep talking about how they're going to war, i.e. Schnabel saying, "Let's go to war," and Hoffman vowing, "We're going to war."
As for Beets, he's still pursuing that dullest of storylines, trying to get his second multi-ton dredge up and operating. "I've become a little obsessed with dredges lately," Beets comments. No kidding. In the Season 8 opener, Beets is dealing with personnel changes, and vowing that last season's failure to move his second dredge will be fixed this time around.
For all the complaints some viewers have with "Gold Rush" - that it at times comes off as scripted, that the miners are wreaking mayhem on the environment, that Hoffman is a larger-than-life figure fans either love or hate - the show remains amazingly popular.
Judging from the new season premiere, more drama is on the way. As Hoffman crew member Juan Ibarra says, following a testy exchange, the season's just starting, "and if this is any kind of glimpse of what it's going to be like, it's going to be real difficult."
We're guessing Discovery probably wouldn't have it any other way.
"Gold Rush" returns for Season 8 Friday, Oct. 13 on Discovery. At 8 p.m., before the season premiere, the mine bosses will look forward to Season 8 and answer questions. The two-hour season premiere begins at 9 p.m.
-- Kristi Turnquist
kturnquist@oregonian.com
503-221-8227
@Kristiturnquist