Found this and the celebrity counterpart on Pluto TV, which has an entire channel dedicated to it, and I've been watching it constantly for about a month. It's an easy thing to throw on in the background while you're doing other things, or if you just want something pleasant to pass the time. The antiques experts are (for the most part) really fun and have great chemistry with one another--I've only seen one or two who are kind of off-putting or take the game too seriously.
I do wonder if a random customer walking into these antique stores off the street could negotiate the same kinds of deals these experts get; sometimes they'll talk the dealers down by over a hundred pounds and the dealer will even complain that they're losing money at that price--and then lower it even more. Maybe they're going soft because they know they're on camera and the auctions are for charity?
It's entertaining to hear the experts rattle off facts about items they pick up off the shelves, but sometimes they outsmart themselves by picking out items that only fellow experts can appreciate. I can't tell you how often an expert will rave about a boring-looking chair because it's from the Edwardian era--the age! The craftsmanship! The history!--and then it will fetch ten pounds at auction because, well, it's just a boring-looking chair. But that's all part of the fun, and the experts take both profits and losses in good humor. It's not the kind of ruthless win-at-any-cost competitive spirit we always see on American reality shows. It's sort of the antiquing equivalent of Great British Bake-Off.
And, thank God, it's NOT heavily scripted and fake, like all the shows we have over here, where every single interaction seems to be choreographed. I caught about three minutes of Storage Wars and was appalled at all the monologues to camera that were so obviously written beforehand by Blue Collar Comedy wannabes. Sickening! Antique Road Trip does it right--low key, lighthearted, organically amusing and informative.
