01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 18, 2006

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

Combine The Amazing Race with The Da Vinci Code (and the Nicolas Cage movie National Treasure) and you have Treasure Hunters, a new reality show that debuts on NBC tonight from 8 to 10 p.m. on Channels 7 and 10.

The show airs again tomorrow night, with an hour-long recap of tonight's premiere at 8, followed by a new episode at 9.

Treasure Hunters tracks 10 teams of three members each as they travel to historical landmarks, where they must solve puzzles and decipher codes that will lead them to a hidden treasure.

(Sample: the phrase "Stillwater Washington" leads competitors to Lake George in Alaska.)

The treasure itself is part of the mystery, although there is a reference to gold on the cover of the Treasure Hunters screener that NBC sent out.

The teams have titles such as Air Force, Ex-CIA, Geniuses (lots of college degrees), and Miss USA, all former contestants in the Miss USA pageant.

Can you guess which team gets some early camera time wearing bikinis?

In a neat twist, Treasure Hunters opens with five teams in Alaska and five in Hawaii, blissfully unaware of the other set of competitors. The teams all meet up in Lincoln, Neb., in the middle of the first episode.

There might have been a better payoff if the competitors spent even more time unaware there were additional teams in the race. But in a conference call with TV writers, executive producer Jane Lipsitz said she wanted to jump-start the competition early.

She also said that having two sets of teams divided by so much distance made logistics extraordinarily difficult. "The first episode required 40 camera crews," she said. "We were literally running out of cameras."

The show is hosted by Laird Macintosh, who gives the far-flung teams instructions via their cell phones.

This allows some blatant product placement for Motorola phones, along with Visa, Ask.com and Orbitz.com, all of which the contestants use to communicate, solve problems and make travel arrangements.

The teams form shifting alliances, and occasionally even call each other for information.

"We call it co-opetition, a cross between competition and cooperation," Lipsitz said. "We didn't realize at first the extent to which the teams would work together.

Lipsitz said the show's creators worked at finding a diverse cast, from the wonky Geniuses to the earthy Wild Hanlons. They also wanted to develop puzzles and codes that were hard -- but not too hard.

"We tested the puzzles on different groups of people we recruited, but it was very tough to predict," she said. "Something we thought would take 20 minutes or a half hour sometimes took six hours. Next time it might be the other way around."

One writer asked if Treasure Hunters was intended as a "secular Da Vinci Code." (The promos for Treasure Hunters even make reference to a secret society. You half expect Tom Hanks in a weird hairdo to appear at any moment.)

"One of the things that made The Da Vinci Code successful is that it takes familiar icons and reveals the mystery around them. In that sense, there is a similarity between The Da Vinci Code and us," Lipsitz said.

Only instead of religious and artistic icons, Lispitz said, Treasure Hunters uses American landmarks, the first one being Mount Rushmore.

"I wanted it to feel huge and magnificent when the teams get there," Lipsitz said.

Lipsitz said it was a long process getting government clearance to film at various landmarks and historic sites -- she's not revealing where they are -- but by convincing officials that the show would be a "celebration" of American history, Treasure Hunters was able to get the permissions it needed.

Along with lots of Americana, Treasure Hunters will also involve some international destinations.

"Living in New England, you should be aware that the history of this country stretches way beyond its borders," Macintosh hinted.

International travel is the strong point of the CBS reality show The Amazing Race. Indeed when teams stayed mostly within American borders during the race's "Family Edition," fans were not happy.

Lipsitz pointed out that Treasure Hunters is a race with a difference. For one thing, Treasure Hunters is not all about speed.

The team that arrives first is not necessarily the winner, it's the team that can figure out the mystery.

Secondly, Treasure Hunters has what Lipsitz calls "a connective story arc," in that contestants need to figure out how all the artifacts they collect on their journey fit together to solve the final puzzle.

She's hoping that TV viewers will want to figure that out, too.

asmith@projo.com / (401) 277-7262