The Craig Moment That Went Too Far On Curse Of Oak Island
While Rick and Marty Lagina are clearly the prime movers behind The History Channel's long-running reality series "The Curse of Oak Island," fans are also accustomed to the calm and generally logical persona of Craig Tester on the show. As Marty Lagina's roommate in collage who eventually went into business with him, Tester came aboard the TV production bringing his considerable knowledge as a drilling engineer and expert in resistivity, or ground-penetrating scan technology (per History.com).
During the show's nine seasons following the explorations, excavations, and discoveries of the Laginas and their team members, a variety of finds have been pulled from the sandy soil of the tiny Oak Island off the coast of Nova Scotia. But while the team is focused on unearthing what centuries of rumor say could be everything from buried pirate booty to silver and gold left by the mysterious Knights Templar, the discoveries so far have been valueless at worst, and at best only interesting if the most speculative of interpretations are given credence.
All of this being said, there is one moment on Season 5 of "The Curse of Oak Island" where Craig Testor abandoned his usual common-sense demeanor, taking his speculation much too far.
Craig's comment about Shakespeare's manuscripts was over the top
In addition to the multiple legends and breathless stories of the fabulous wealth just waiting to be dug up on Oak Island, other decidedly unlikely tales speculate that priceless original folio editions of Shakespeare's plays (or plays mistakenly attributed to Shakespeare but penned by his patron Francis Bacon) are also secreted somewhere underground on the island (via Oak Island Mystery). Then, in the Season 5 episode "The Lot Thickens," an unearthed fragment of material is taken to be analyzed in a mainland lab where it's identified as being leather with what might be a bit of parchment attached.
One possible explanation? The relic is a piece of old bookbinding (via History). And this not-so-solid bit of data prompts Tester to say, "One of the theories about that for a long time is that ... Shakespeare's manuscripts could be buried at Oak Island."
In a Reddit discussion of the scene, user u/SteeledReason summed up several irked viewers' reactions when he wrote, "I was frankly shocked that that came out of Craig's mouth. He's always struck me as being the most intelligent man of the bunch." Redditor u/ApparentlyNoOne was similarly dumbfounded at first, then added they considered it just more of the show's trademark technique of drawing viewers in with less-than-sensational discoveries, writing, "Very quickly I turned around and thought it was Oak Island Shtick."
So, while Craig Tester may usually display an engineer's evidence-oriented nature, this is one moment he seems to have taken the show's penchant for wild speculations way too far on "The Curse of Oak Island."