I’m a little confused about how the TV season breaks down, but they just started the third fishing season.
“The Deadliest Catch” is a show on The Discovery Channel that follows the travails of fisherman (primarily crab) on the Bering Sea. They have cameras on 5 or 6 boats, and you get to know the captains, the crew, and you follow along as they haul in crab traps (crab “pots”), store the crab, and then bring the catch into the docks.
The first season actually had a guy DIE – not on one of the boats they were following, but one of the main boats was called in to search on a mayday call.
It also had a boat with a crew member who got so scared out at sea, he wanted to jump into the ocean in a survival suit and have the Coast Guard pick him up.
The third season is off to a great start because it’s FREEZING. One boat fished for 8 hours in ZERO degrees where the spray freezes on the people and the pots and on everything on the boat. They need to sledgehammer the ice to clean it, as well as climb on the icy pots which aer stacked 3 or 4 deep on the deck of the ship.
They follow the progress of the boats by counting the money they make when they bring the crabs in. Second season, a boat made $800,000 (in like a month) and the crew made about $70,000 EACH. You really end up getting hooked (yuk yuk) as they haul in the pots and count the catch.
If you’re bored by “Survivors” standing on stumps in some tropical water, check out “Deadliest Catch”.
I think that Discovery shows last week’s episode Tuesdays at 8:00 and the new episode Tuesdays at 9:00. Great show, even if you’re not a fisherman.
I watch this show, although I’ve missed this season. I was thinking about it last night (too late to catch this week’s episode), so I fired up the DVR and found out that Sunday is a marathon Deadliest Catch day. My DVR and my recordable DVD player will be working overtime.
Yep, I watch it too. I keep finding myself going, “You know, I could do that…” Then they have a drama with a guy falling overboard or something and I go, “Oh yeah, nevermind.”
I don’t like reality shows, but this is more a documentary: it’s not about stupid tricks and games in a phony situation; it’s about real people doing real things.
I LOVE the deadliest catch. A few shows ago one of the boats was hit with a rogue wave. The guy is filming up with the Captain, chatting about whatever, when a HUGE wave comes crashing over the side, right into the windows, blackness, the camera is tossed around, chaos… Come see next week’s Deadliest Catch! :eek: Amazing TV.
Unlike some other reality shows, there is real interpersonal conflict as well. Job loss due to the change in fishing rules, promotions, bad fishing grounds, coupled with hard dangerous work and few hours to rest. Hell, one of the episodes had a boat running out of coffee! That’s drama.
If memory serves (and it often doesn’t), when we were last discussing this show, the wife of an Alaskan crabber/fisher weighed in with thoughts and additionaly tidbits. It was a great thread.
My search fu works. The poster was kaiwik, who started the thread. Hope she comes back to this thread. It’s like having our own DVD commentary track.
While hitchhiking across Alaska, one of the guys that gave me a ride was no older than 19 or so and he’d just got off one of those boats. He was proud enough of his 80K check to whip it out of his shirt pocket and show it to me.
Love the show. While I wouldn’t mind the hard work, ther’s absolutely no way you could get me out in conditions that extreme or dangerous. They’re freakin’ nuts.
Hubby and I started watching this show about a week ago; they showed a marathon one day and we became immediately addicted. And yeah, the new season is wild (two inches of ice covering everything on the boat? Holy crap!). I agree that this is true reality TV – no stupid stunts or weird “challenges”, just a bunch of guys doing what they do and trying not to get killed.