“The vast Bering Sea, over a million square miles of the world’s most violent and unpredictable waters and home of the dealiest catch, Alaskan crab.” This is how every episode of the Deadliest Catch begins. Each season of the Deadliest Catch follows the fortunes of a several crab boat crews from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, as they fight deadly storms, frigid temperatures, and sometimes each other as they try to get their share of the $62 million in crab caught each year. I know many of you are thinking, ‘that sounds dumb’. I say, give it a chance. If you like gritty, real-life adventure, and how it affects real people, this show is it. Compared to Deadliest Catch, Survivor and Amazing Race are for pussies. When it comes to reality TV, this show is as real as it gets. In the last 15-20 years 90 of these guys have died and 115 have had to be saved by the Coast Guard. They say that the injury rate for the deck crews is near 100%. This is not surprising considering these guys are worked to complete exhaustion, out in bad weather, on a moving deck, with 800-1000 pound crab pots swinging through the air.

The third season of Deadliest Catch just started this week. Thank God that my Tivo season pass was still in place or I might have missed it. The first episode, entitled “A Tragic Beginning”, does not disappoint. The fleet is first delayed from leaving port due to a pair of storms with hurricane force winds. Even though this is only the first episode, one boat, the Ocean Challenger, has sent a distress signal and her crew has been forced to abandon ship. By the end of the show, the Coast Guard is searching for the men in the freezing water (think Titanic cold) but, you need to watch next week to find out how many of her crew get rescued. They hint that it will not be all of them.

I love this show because I really enjoy stories of real world adventure. Plus these fishermen remind me of the hardworking blue collar guys I used to unload trucks with back in NJ except, even more hardcore, if thats possible. Then throw in the fact that I am fascinated by anything that floats and this is another show tailor made for me.

Now I understand that for the majority of our site’s visitors, watching this Deadliest Catch is a problem because the new episodes air Tuesday nights at 9 which, usually overlaps with American Idol. Fortunately God has granted us the blessings of Tivo. In addition, the Discovery Channel airs the new episodes multiple times every week and you can now watch the episodes online! So now you have no excuse not to watch this show.

Returning Boats and their captains:
-Maverick (Blake)
-Cornelia Marie (Phil)
-Northwestern (Sig)
-Time Bandit (Jonathon)

New Boats for Season 3:
-Early Dawn
-Wizard
-Farwest Leader
-Aleutian Ballad