RUGGED! Deadliest Catch, Channel 4, 8.00pm
I make no apologies for picking this as today’s highlight in an attempt to butch up the site a little bit. Actually, in fairness we’ve done pretty well so far this week, what with CSI and The F Word and Dispatches (even if that one was actually about skin creams), but given that we do spend quite a lot of time talking about soap operas and I’d Do Anything, it can’t hurt to discuss something a bit wurrgh, hurrgh for a while.
So, yes! Deadliest Catch. A surprise hit for the Discovery Channel, and a surprise hit again when Channel 4 showed it, apparently, although how the same thing can surprise you twice in a row is a bit of a mystery to me, and suggests that somebody somewhere probably wasn’t really paying attention. Either way, it’s very good in an Ice Road Truckers sort of way, giving you a glimpse into the world of people who making a living largely on the size of their cojones (not literally, I hasten to add).
The show follows king crab fisherman in some of the most dangerous areas of sea in the world, where the risk of serious injury or indeed death while out fishing is very high, but the rewards, they are huge. Tonight sees the start of the second series, wherein the fishermen find their numbers cut by half due to new quotas and regulations, but the crab fishing season has also been lengthened by three weeks, which potentially means (a) more money to be made, and (b) more footage of people being extremely brave and incredibly manly for the rest of us to watch from the comfort of our warm, dry, non-fatal living rooms. Hooray!
