User Reviews

This series seems to be of the same genre of "reality" that Donald Trump's The Apprentice has spawned. Already, Martha Stewart's copycat series has gone down in flames. And The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency on Oxygen was a pretty miserable failure. But *David* Dickinson's effort seems to have better prospects. First, the antiques and collectibles world has a much broader audience and much more of the "I can do that, too" type of appeal than the potential audience for would-be corporate CEOs or brain dead supermodels. Second, David Dickinson is much more entertaining, witty and articulate than Trump, Stewart, or just about anybody else in the reality genre.

As for the series itself, I've enjoyed watching Dickinson's candidate selection process. Three fairly knowledgeable collectors and three or four rank amateurs are brought together. (Possible spoiler) And then Dickinson turns around and immediately takes the "experts" down a peg. The first experienced antiquer is the "lady of leisure" who loves "pink, small things" (snicker, snicker) and brings Dickinson her chosen object for auction. And he reveals that she's purchased a bottle with a crack in it. Then, Mr. Knows It All Perry Field literally leads the rest of the contestants around by the nose and all but forces them to buy a chair for resell at auction. And it turns out the chair is a hybridized piece that would be rejected out of hand by the auctioneers. Meanwhile, Dickinson's selection of a completely inexperienced market stall trader of small electronics comes out smelling like a rose for doubting the "experts" from the very beginning. Clearly, Dickinson values someone with street smarts and guile and without an ounce of experience in antiques at least as much as someone with an extensive collection of 18th century landscapes and portraits hanging on his wall and who is likely to get carried away with himself. Which one is more likely to make a success of it in the *business* of antiques? That's what it's all about.