'Silver Rush' Goes Diving for Dollars. Glug, glug...

After “Gold Rush,” perhaps inevitably, comes “Silver Rush,” a three-part Discovery Channel effort the network has chosen to air in one night, on Feb. 24. So while women in particular are watching the Oscars, the channel apparently hopes to attract men interested in a different precious metal.

Good luck with that.

“Silver Rush” focuses on an attempt to raise sunken treasure from the ocean floor, using cutting-edge technology operated by an international crew. The result is a lot of imagery that looks culled right out of a James Cameron documentary or the opening sequence in “Titanic,” all set to extremely urgent music, lest anyone forget there’s a lot at stake.

The expense of this sort of fortune-seeking is repeatedly emphasized, setting up a scenario where the crew must come away with tons of silver or risk facing financial disaster. It’s all handled in a reasonably straightforward manner, but the opening hour, anyway, feels like so many of these other manly-men-trying-to-strike-it-rich programs it’s difficult to exact the hoped-for adrenaline a rush from the process.

So for those who are drawn to the “thrill of victory and/or agony of defeat” part of these exercises, here’s a suggestion: DVR the whole thing, and watch the first and last 10 minutes, skipping (or at least mostly excising) what’s in between. Because unless you plan to engineer your own deep-sea dive, all the rest is just worthless filler.

Oh, and if this works, can “Platinum Rush” be far behind?