NBC's Treasure Hunters: 1/2 Da Vinci Code & 1/2 The Amazing Race & All FUN

NBC's new hit reality show - Treasure Hunters is the best new show on TV this summer.  It is one-half The Da Vinci Code and one-half The Amazing Race.  The premise is simple; ten teams of three set off to find hidden treasure worth "millions of dollars".  Each week (so far) one group is eliminated.  After three weeks, eight teams are left.  

Teams include Former CIA, Air Force, Miss USA, Grad Students, Geniuses and the Wild Hanlons (a group of good old Southern boys) among others.  The teams are given small clues each week to help them find an artifact.  Weekly there is one less artifact than remaining teams, kind of like musical chairs, so the last team is eliminated.  The sole surviving team wins it all.

Each team has a personality and certain expectations that the audience (at least me) has for them.  You have your strong teams that everyone expects to win; Former CIA, and Air Force.  You have the weaker teams; The Brown Family (eliminated last episode), the Wild Hanlons.  You also have the unexpectedly tough team, a team that proved itself last week; the Graduate Students.  They are a 3-female-team that showed so much fortitude, desire and will last week that I am now rooting for either them or one other team (more about them later).

The Grad Students are 3 young, attractive, intelligent women who were at the back of the pack thus far.  Then last week one of them sprained her ankle to the degree that she couldn't walk.  The other two members had to carry her through rugged terrain.  She was in extreme pain but none of them ever gave up.  They pushed on and were not eliminated.  It showed a sense of teamwork, dedication and desire not often seen in reality shows.  I applaud them for their efforts.  It would have been easy to just quit but they are better people than that.