In 1848, a gold nugget found in California caused an event known as the “Gold Rush,” which saw a huge influx of travelers, settlers, and prospectors quickly advance upon the west coast of the United States in order to strike it rich (via History). Carrying on the spirit of these early hopeful miners, Discovery’s “Gold Rush” and its franchise of spin-off shows often follow different teams across the world in their pursuit of the valuable mineral resource. The very first season of “Gold Rush” premiered in 2010, and, due to its overwhelming popularity, several spin-off series came into being. Each spin-off puts its focus on different locations, miners, and gold harvesting operations.
Besides the main series in the franchise, “Gold Rush,” other shows that have emerged in this reality television franchise include “Gold Rush: South America,” “Gold Rush: Parker’s Trail,” “Gold Rush: White Water,” “Gold Rush: Dave Turin’s Lost Mine,” “Gold Rush: Freddy Dodge’s Mine Rescue,” “Gold Rush: Winter’s Fortune,” and “Hoffman Family Gold.” Considering the original “Gold Rush” launched in 2010 and the most recent spin-off, “Hoffman Family Gold, debuting in 2022, that’s an impressive amount of spin-off shows to emerge in so little time. With so many “Gold Rush” options available for fans to view, which series reigns supreme on the Internet Movie Database, per the user-submitted scores?
Gold Rush: Freddy Dodge’s Mine Rescue has the highest rating to date
It turns out that the highest-rated “Gold Rush” spin-off series, per the IMDb rating that is determined by averaging the scores submitted by IMDb users, scores even higher than the franchise progenitor. The show in question is “Gold Rush: Freddy Dodge’s Mine Rescue,” which has a score of 8.1 out of 10 on IMDb, with 278 votes submitted at the time of writing. Dodge is a famous and experienced miner, so it makes sense that fans would be intrigued to see his expertise at work. “Freddy Dodge’s Mine Rescue” series follows Dodge and Juan Ibarra as they provide aid to gold mining operations that are struggling by using their years of experience and knowledge in order to help turn the operations around and into something profitable.
IMDb user dennis-11731 said of the series, “I have watched every ‘Gold Rush’ show since it was first aired — never missed an episode. Your show really inspired me, and I consider it the best of all the ‘Gold Rush’ episodes.” User kmpuggy-19974 also posted a glowing review of the series, writing in part, “Glad Freddy has his own show, he has always been one of my favs, and Juan is a top bloke, too, so it’s a great pairing. A good show, really enjoy watching it.” Between these reviews and the overall score of “Freddy Dodge’s Mine Rescue,” it seems as if fans on IMDb consider this particular “Gold Rush” spin-off the very best of the franchise.