Deadliest Catch
1 Think Animal Planet meets The World Series of Poker: In this Discovery Channel series, cameras follow Alaskan crab fishing crews through high seas, sleepless nights and the slaphappy rush of hauling in Volkswagen-size pots of valuable crustaceans. (Exceptionally lucky crewmen can earn tens of thousands for a few days' work.) A big plus: Unlike most reality TV, nobody here has plucked eyebrows, implants, Hollywood dreams or a life that will be magically transformed in 52 minutes by liposuction and Da Vinci veneers.
2 Catch veers wildly between real drama and pure pop cheese. In episode 6, one of 250 boats in the fleet goes down, with five crewmen lost. Still, Discovery's attempts to make crab fishing relevant to the MTV generation lead to frequent, unintentional entertainment: What's not to love about the sight of thousands of wriggling Opilio crabs being hauled aboard to the musical bombast of Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive"? Also, hats off to whoever came up with Catch's version of the "big reveal": the show-ending Budweiser crab count. (You go, Captain Sig!)
3 A man bites the head off a herring.
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