Lament of a former Deadliest Catch fan: ode to the Discovery Channel in decline.

Okay, if you are a fan of the show, you aren't going to like this very much but this show is not very good anymore.  I dare say, the network is headed downhill pretty quick.  It used to be this show was compelling because of the inherent danger of working in the horrible conditions of the Bering Sea fishing for crab and now it has degenerated into being just another reality show.  The kind where the whole show is supposed to be a document of the real happenings of the people involved, but in "reality" they are more scripted than a WWE card (professional wrestling.

I used to take a measure of pride in the fact that the ONLY reality shows I allow myself is the Deadliest Catch and Mythbusters, and at the time I made that declaration it was generally true.  Mythbusters was more of a "Mr. Wizard on steroids" and less of a reality show but that's beside the point.  The thing is that in the case of Deadliest Catch it was reality in it's purest form in which the danger they faced was real and the "life or death" aspect was something that made for good TV on it's own.

The show had heart.  It had soul.  It showed people persevering over horrible conditions and coming out on top.  Speaking purely as a viewer I was suddenly giddy that there was a reality-type show out there that showed actual REALITY without a litter of children that all vomit simultaneously, (although that did make for some great TV when it aired), obese rednecks whose spawn compete in child beauty pageants, and of course the Survivor and Big Brother drivel shoveled at us from the major networks...though the dude in the second season of survivor who stuck the dismount in the campfire was pretty cool.

Then, someone died.

Phil Harris...one of the shows original captains and arguably the heart and soul of the show suffered a stroke in 2010 and died shortly after.  It was the shows peak.  The producers of the show elected to present his death as something that affected all of the crews and boats featured with dignity and compassion, yet kept the exploitation to a minimum.  Once he passed away the show...to my point of view...had a void they have struggled to fill.  From there it's been a slow downhill spiral.

It's indicative of the general decline of the Discover Channel programming in general.  The soap opera that DC has become has had a slow ripple effect that extends network-wide, even to the generally lighthearted Mythbusters, who have gone from the narrator describing the experiments and myths being tested in progress to the participants doing the narrative, displaying above all the fact that mediocre writing can't improve general bad acting.  

The fact that they hit someones house with a cannonball further illustrates the point that sometimes safety...something they touted they had "over 30 years experience that kept them safe"...took a powder in the name of publicity.  No, I don't buy the whole claim of it being an accident.

 

It doesn't end there...intelligence insulting shows that are there to bridge the gap between the marquee shows previously mentioned have landed in the off season, such as "Amish Mafia", an example of my previous contention that Discovery Channel "reality" shows are descending into the relative spontaneity of a wrestling card being presented in a bowling alley; and "Naked and Afraid" which is just...stupid.  It's one thing to survive a plane crash and get stranded in the wilderness somewhere fully clothed, but to deliberately be dumped somewhere naked as your first day on earth is just...dumb.  

Some of you may think this is too harsh a judgement of a very good network and to a degree, you're right.  

I'm not in this to win any popularity contests though.  I just want what once was a VERY GOOD TV network to stop the bleeding and go back to what they did best: good shows that snuck in a little learning when you weren't watching, not BS reality shows better suited to E! or MTV.