Storage Wars

Storage Wars is an especially entertaining addition to the genre. Who doesn't love the sound of an auctioneer's voice? Beyond that, the four buyers on whom the show focuses are well chosen, and the "reveals"--the moments when the buyers see what they've acquired and get estimates of its value--are great fun.

Storage Wars--trivial and magnetic, sociologically peculiar and elementally creepy-gives the reality-show treatment to a class of merchants slinking beneath the radar of many a solvent citizen.

The storage hunters aren't warm and fuzzy. They're hard guys, always looking for the edge and the way to get that nickel first. On the other hand, they seem to like their work. In the end, what part of the American Dream is bigger than that?

Both shows [Storage Wars and Discovery's "Gold Rush: Alaska"] also have their moments of absorbing drama and distasteful levels of bullheadedness, set against an American backdrop that once again seems mere steps away from the full-on, Cormac McCarthy-style apocalypse.

Those who still dream of making a killing on "Antiques Roadshow" might conceivably get a kick out of watching a bunch of guys try to outmaneuver one another for the right to take home whatever's behind Door No. 3, but if there's an acquisitive bone in your body, you should probably steer clear, lest you find yourself the subject of yet another cautionary tale on A&E's "Hoarders."

Granted, one can argue that such programs, including History's "Pawn Stars" and Syfy's auction series "Hollywood Treasure," tap into a recessionary desire to mine moolah from unexpected sources. Such deeper meaning, however, proves elusive in the sheer banality of the process.