User Reviews

This show is impossible to listen to. The same lame experts are used for every show. The British guy sounds illiterate. He is not an expert on anything. He is just there to make ridiculous remarks. He kills the credibility of this show.

The so-called journalist, Andrew Gough, sounds like he is trying to sell car wax and shammies every time he is on. Hyper-active is one way to describe this guy. Totally unbelievable is another way.

This show is just awful. It is a sad example of what could be an interesting science and sociology show if they used college professors and real experts.

Fascinating locales but too padded with some really bad commentators. That Bell guy with the teenaged touseled hairdo in middle age is the worst! They really need to fire the hairdresser. Middle aged men with over teased and moussed hair. It is so funny it is a distraction.

Hire some real historians and dump the hyperbole. Nusbacher is great! Very knowledgeable. Fire Rob Bell. He's just unqualified and annoying.

They've added a lot of political commentary. I don't watch for that. I just turn the sound off, watch the scenes and look up the locales and read about them.

PLEASE, can the producer advise Andrew Gough to tone down his insufferable dramatic description of each and every detail!!! The man appears to be head over heels in love with the sound of his own voice.

Why the Science channel persists in putting Andrew Gough in most of its programs is the real mystery. The man has no real credentials and is no "expert" on anything. His commentary sounds as if he just Googled the subject before the taping of the show and quickly skimmed Wikipedia. In fact, these shows seem to have a stable of goofy frauds commenting on whatever is presented. Gough is not alone in being an utterly ridiculous, clown-like figure on such programs but he is the most hyper and unashamedly ignorant.

This is almost the same as What on Earth? It's hard to say which is better because they're almost the same thing. I guess the difference is in who gives you the information -- What on Earth's experts are better in my opinion, but it's a toss up. This is more historical, while WOE is more about modern day aerial images, while this is about old structures. That's where the differences stop, but this may not be a bad thing (I like the format of these shows). Hope they keep it on TV and explore more places I don't know about.

Nusbacher Is the worst. Trying waaayyy too hard to be interesting. Historian? Not likely. Stop trying so hard and present facts. The others are not very convincing either. It seems like the producers allow them to speak in an ad-lib fashion without checking credentials. I have a PhD. Don't think for a second that I'm qualified to narrate a show. A PhD and $1 will get u a small taco.

Overall, the show is pretty interesting. However, I cannot stand to listen to Dr. Nusbacher. The over-annunciation of every word is annoying.

The narrator simply cannot pronounce the word "nuclear." Instead, it's the ear-grating version: "nucular." All the more off-putting since the on-camera experts know how to and do pronounce it correctly. That the producers, AND Science Channel (part of Discovery) let this stand discredits both entities.

They've taken what could have been a moderately interesting series and turned it weird. The half baked experts are annoying, but when they rolled out this Nusbacher person... All bets were off. What the hell were they thinking?

I've been watching episodes all along of Mysteries of The Abandoned, and find this to be a decently interesting show (if less interesting overall than the similar What On Earth? on the same network.) Too many former war sites and bomb shelters feature throughout but...I guess that's just how the human race has been spending a great deal of its time ruining the planet and leaving messy, uncleaned dump sites on earth. Because apparently we're still up to the moment living tribally with Hatfield and McCoy mentality, even though it's supposedly the modern age.

However, today while watching a newer episode of MOTA, I see that Discovery Channel not only leaves their network logo in the bottom right of the screen for the entire episode, NOW there's an intrusive eyesore banner in the upper right corner of the screen simultaneosly as a promo for the Bering Sea Gold show. This also never goes away while watching the entire episode.

You've GOT to be kidding me, right ?

With the glut of networks and all the FREE entertainment alternatives around as well, don't think for ONE second I'll keep watching this non-essential show if you're going to put an eyesore in the top right corner for future episodes. I have no interest in Bering Sea Gold. I will never watch it. No amount of reminding me of that show is going to get me to watch it. Or whatever other annoying banner ad you want to foist in my eyesight. I resent MORE advertising being shoved in my face, to watch your so-so Abandoned show. So this is a message to Discovery Channel if they read these reviews: LOSE the insidious advertising creeping or consider me DUMPING watching this show's future episodes or re-runs. Keep that crap up on your network on other shows and it's bye bye for them, too.

The accident at reactor 4 was caused by testing when operators pulled control rods out during a xenon precluded startup event with emergency cooling deactivated resulting in a contaminated steam explosion. Sorry, it had nothing to do with the "Woodpecker" Soviet radar system. You have to get the facts right or the show is useless with is pretty much my opinion of it right now... sorry Mr Gough.

In many episodes there is too little to see while historians and engineers that review the sites leave the impression they have never been on the sites they comment about but have been shown video clips of these places ,. The series suffers from the typical American television o phenomenon of repeated narration and repeated clips of the same material , so typical with National Geographic , Discovery Channel and the sort.

I really want to watch this show! BUT I CAN'T! Why? Because the background music is not in the background --- it's in the foreground and it drowns out all the dialogue! I don't understand why they don't turn the music down or OFF! It's really distracting anyway. It enhances nothing. Am I the only one who has this issue???? Downstairs I use the captions, but upstairs our tv doesn't get captions, so any of the Discovery or Science channels that do this same stupid "loud music during the whole show" thing forces me to surf on by. PLEASE turn the music down!

Narrator Kaspar Michaels on the Duga Woodpecker segment repeatedly says nuculear instead of nuclear! Really annoying...Funny no one caught that during production.

You know, I understand that there always two sides to everything but Nusbacher is just laughable. I cannot believe she calls herself a historian. It's just her overrated opinion on things, not actual facts. Every time she speaks she lowers a person's IQ. After watching other series she is in, I simply cannot watch any more of them. It just makes me insane to hear her rotgut blabbering on things she is obviously clueless about.

Nusbacher's fake, affected accent and odd speaking cadence is INCREDIBLY distracting.

I watched a few episodes- interesting idea for a series but poorly executed. They seem to have gone low budget on the narrators with the same 5 'experts' presenting short exclamatory sound bites in dramatic fashion. This gets pretty monotonous and grating after watching a few shows. The selection of narrators seems to be an attempt to utilize a few edgy personalities, like the extreme liberal transgendered Lynette Nusbacher- whose still masculine facial features overwhelm her spoken narrative- it's a bit startling at first. The other narrators range from bright eyed and peppy, to laid back and conversational but providing little more than a voice for a completely scripted presentation. Sorry guys I'm abandoning this series.

Look, the show is produced cheaply for the masses, not for graduate-level infotainment. Once in a while somewhere along the way, someone like me learns a thing or two about history from watching this show. The personalities involved don't bother me in the least.

EDIT: Just watched the first episode of the 2019 season. Still has some of the same people commenting, with a couple of new faces. The show feels a little fresher, but the biggest thing is the coordinates for the places they're talking about. I checked out all four in the premiere episode of this season and they are all absolutely spot-on! Don't know if they got enough feedback from viewers, or if somebody at the top finally said something, but the coordinates match the locations, and that is huge for me. So I will continue to watch this show and enjoy it as I have in the past. =============== I agree with most people about the personalities, not experts, that appear on the show. I have to admit that the minute I saw Lynette Nusbacher, I knew what everyone else did although I looked it up to confirm my suspicions. Andrew Gough, oddly enough, also appears quite often on History Channel's Ancient Aliens as an expert. There are a couple of people who are at least articulate enough to seem interesting with their comments so they and the content actually keep me coming back. My biggest pet peeve with this show is the coordinates that they show for each segment. I finally decided to look them during one episode and I was shocked at how incredibly inaccurate they were. One segment was about Tyneham Village in Dorset UK and the coordinates they gave were near Calais, France! The next segment was located near or in Lake Michigan in the US, and laughingly, the coordinates gave me China! I can't understand why they do this.

I love this show and can watch several episodes on the same day. The stories are fascinating. Doesn't matter who is talking ... They are obviously more informed than I. Hope they don't discontinue it.

Totally off the mark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it is pronounced kin-zoo. was being refurbished when knocked down was used for scenic trains during the 1990's never abandoned do some research next time

I like ALL the commentators. And I happen to like what Lynette has to say. She often says something profound or insightful. Her voice may be different sounding, but the idea that she is only on the show to push an "agenda" (and not because she is knowledgeable on the subject), is incorrect. I think the reactions in the comments here just give them more reason to keep her, and not let the haters win.

I just watched an episode about the Salton Sea in California. At the beginning of the segment they show a globe and the coordinates of the Salton Sea as 33 degrees, 19 minutes, 42.9 seconds north and 115 degrees, 50 minutes, 36.2 seconds east. No part of California is in the eastern hemisphere! I noticed the same mistake on another episode. You would think they could get coordinates right in the second season of the program. The narrator also said the Salton Sea was in the desert of Colorado.

Once again, we are given an interesting premise, then immediately insulted by the blathering of a group of so-called "experts" instead of having the genesis, history, and ultimate demise of these structures simply explained in a reasonable narrative. Gough desperately needs a prescription for Xanax, and Nussbacher (used to be Aryeh when he was a military and weapons "expert"), who was annoying as a male, is utterly disgusting in 'his'new gender. The rest of them range from just boring to laughable stupid.

I see this as the slow, but inexorable, demise of educational television - many channels have already gone down the proverbial toilet bowl - it looks like the Science Channel, Discovery, AHC (once known as the Military Channel), and the History channel are aspiring to be as vapid and un-informing as TLC (once known as "The Learning Channel"). I guess it won't be long before NatGeo follows the trend as well. I have been spending far more time watching the BBC - they still haven't forgotten how to do documentaries that inform and are a treat to behold.

This series should be abandoned......