Simply Perfect

hyped garbage

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I am a long term electronic service engineer specialized to professional video tape recorders. I do also much restoration work with old radios etc. It is just awful to see how they destroy those nice old things removing every single nuance and original paint they have. Even if the paintwork is really good for its age. They repaint using their own colors which usually are too bright and do not fit to these old beauties. Also they ruin labels and texts when they can't do them right. They use wrong fonts and wrong colors etc. Also they change old, beautiful gears and buttons and other things which made the apparatus look so fine. Why? Did they sell those to real restorers or museums? Also the prices are something ridiculous. I wonder if anybody really has paid those huge sums for that bad job. One of the worst was the Nasa helmet they totally ruined.

I was very pleased when American Restoration spun off of Pawn Stars The concept was thoroughly engaging and became a personal favorite. Its decline in quality was subtle until the dramatic and unessisary introduction of the character Leonard. This was a grave and incredible stumble and prompted me to simply stop watching the show. So strong was my reaction and disappointment it compelled me to write this comment while seeing a re-run. As it evolved the show became less technical and more incredible. Obviously staged scenes attempted to keep the audience engaged. It has instead transitioned to being sad with sarcastic characters and plot lines that are insulting. Simply not true to the original concept. The premise was good, the current execution is unacceptable. You have silenced a positive voice for American Restoration and you've lost at least one more viewer.

This show is about restoration but yet it never shows you any type of restoration work. Instead you get a lot of stage acting and it's all very disingenuous. I'd like to see more of the work and how they transform the items they get. Isn't that the whole point of the show? I don't want to just see the finished project, but rather the process of how they get it to look like new. I suspect it's due the fact they over charge the customers, so wouldn't want them to see how little work goes into restoring the items. I also don't need to see the completely and utter stage acting of the client pretending to be surprised when they unveil the item. It gets very tedious after a few episodes; especially when the items they get are very uninteresting.

If you are a fan of Pawn Stars as I am, you probably noticed that regular expert Rick Dale hadn't been on for a while; that is because he now has his own show! Rick Dale is a very likable guy who during the run of Pawn Stars has restored some amazing pieces for the guys at Gold & Silver Pawn. Now he has his own show which runs along a similar format to Pawn Stars; he usually has around 3 customers per episode who bring in various interesting items to be restored, they negotiate a price and for the next 30minutes, the action revolves around how the items are repaired and made to look new before a grand revealing at the end. Regular characters who appear on the show are Tyler, Rick's son, his brother Ron along with Kowboy, Kyle and Brettley. All the recurring characters are very enjoyable to watch in their own way, with Kowboy enjoying the role of antagonist with deadpan Kyle being an excellent foil. There is a great deal of crossover between American Restoration and Pawn Stars with episode 02/14 involving a full episode for each programme, this episode even involves Danny from Counts Customs; who along with Rick Dale and Sean Rich made up three of the best experts from Pawn Stars. Overall, American Restoration makes great viewing, being both entertaining and interesting, complimented by a great cast. It also seems a lot less staged than Pawn Stars has become, even though some of the restorations clearly take a lot longer than the few days the programme appears to suggest. This programme has the potential to run and run!!