One of the problems he faced making the show was how much time they would get with Dr. Hawass. This tells me the good doctor is obviously a busy man. I'm sure he makes plenty of time for people who wish to put him on tv to talk about Egypt, he is in a way the ambassador to the world for all things Egyptian. So, I'm sure he won't be amused by some clowns pretending to film a show about him being replaced. You would think there would be plenty of reasons why they would send people to Egypt to film Dr. Hawass and allow him to enlighten us with his amazing work but why waste his time with something like this?

I told the guy that was telling me all this I was certainly jealous of his opportunity to go to Egypt, meet Dr. Hawass and get unprecedented access to some of the true wonders of civilization but that I would not want to do this if it involved basically scamming Zahi with some crazy nonsense about him being replaced.

From what he told me he was not sure if all 5 of the guys that would be following Dr. Hawass were actually archaeologists but he knew at least some of them were. This could mean the others were plants just there to do stupid things and look bad to create some sort of dramatic tension on the show.

I also asked him what exactly they told Dr. Hawass to get him to agree to this and he said Dr. Hawass was told that they had 5 archaeologists that really wanted an opportunity to learn from him to possibly become his proteges and spend their time focusing on Egypt. So, in a way I guess they could claim that what they were doing was "real" except for the idea that Dr. Hawass is being replaced...he is not...and as you said I don't think he could be.

He was going to shoot 3 episodes I believe then they would put those together and they would be shown to the people at the History Channel that purchase shows. The History Channel people would then decide if they wanted them to continue making more of them, they could make suggestions, and if they like them they would buy the show and it would air in the future. At this point I would assume those episodes have been completed and shown to the History Channel and a decision has already been made on if they wanted them.