Gold Rush is jaw-dropping television. Not only are most of these men total boobs and incompetents, but their stupidity borders on criminal at times.

Some shading aside, some occasional twinges of remorse, nothing can hide the fact that these people have no souls to lose, no character to develop. Apart from looking for "Godfather" homage moments, there isn't more to root for here than there is at a cage fight.

Over five-plus hours, the miniseries would have had time to explore every nuance. But there are so few that rise above artifice, and so little dramatic action driving the plot, that even an actor as talented as Ms. Winslet can hardly fill the dead spaces.

In the three episodes HBO made available to reviewers, however, the only moment of transcendence for the viewer occurs when some of the characters take to the sea on their boards and ride the waves in an "Endless Summer" moment that comes as a blessed relief after the inexplicable chaos of what precedes it -- and is over too soon.

As they stumble from one brutal act to another, accompanied by a hip rock soundtrack, we're not watching dramatic art; it's more like "Dawson's Creek" for psychopaths.