The latest iteration in the picking, bartering and reselling niche of cable TV is a group of people who pull salable items from old buildings.
“Abandoned” (National Geographic Channel, 9 p.m.) doesn’t go to, say, the entire city of Detroit, but to individual places, such as a lavish 1840 church in Philadelphia in the first episode, and an empty Maryland silk mill in the next.
Producers coach Jay Chaikin to become the kind of obvious narrator as Ty Pennington or Mike Rowe. His wife plays the role the banker did on “Deal or No Deal,” telling him how much he can spend at each place. He pretends she has a lot of say but she doesn’t.
A surprising amount of time is done in the bargaining, as if that’s the most interesting thing going on, when it’s the history and the restoration that hold more interest. We never get to see who buys the things from him, but there is one of those annoying scoreboards on screen as if we’re keeping count at home.
It comes before an episode of “America’s Lost Treasures” (Ntional Geographic, 10 p.m.).
Other shows of this ilk on TV tonight include “Storage Wars” (A&E, 8 p.m.), “Storage Wars: Texas” (A&E, 9 p.m.), “Cajun Pawn Stars” (History, 8 p.m.) and “American Restoration” (History, 10 p.m.).