More Television

two TV shows to talk about today. of course, one is deadliest catch (natch) but the other is a first for the blog...how i met your mother (HIMYM).

some people have called HIMYM the "friends" of the aughts. while i don't necessarily agree with that (i never liked friends much), i do see some similarities. both are VERY contemporary. friends dealt with being in your late 20s-early 30s in the 1990s and HIMYM deals with the same age group in the 2000s. i particularly liked the contemporary-ness of this week's episode. the marshall sub-plot was basically one large graph jam! shout-out (graph jam! is part of the cheezburger network, which is home to one of my newest favorite websites, failblog. im sure i will write about failblog in the future). the marshall sub-plot was easily the funniest part of the episode.

but the real point of this post is to weigh in on whether or not we met the mother monday night (for those who don't know, HIMYM is a sitcom about how the main character, ted, met his children's mother. each episode starts with adult ted telling his kids this long and convoluted tale of how he met their mother and hilarity ensues. it is a mystery who the mother is, but its a great plot device to keep the story moving forward). i am going to go out on a limb here and assume that none of my reader(s) watch the show, so i am going to throw some spoilers out, so if you do watch the show and haven't seen monday's episode, stop reading.

at the end of monday's episode, after all the twists of fate that lead ted to stand on the corner under the yellow umbrella, we find out that it is stella who taps ted on the shoulder. the entire episode leads us to believe that at the end, we are going to meet the mother. however, after careful review and analysis, i DO NOT THINK that stella is the mother. there are a few hints and giveaways that led me to this conclusion. first of all, the ted-stella relationship sucked, and i think the producers know that. even if you like sarah chalke (of scrubs fame), you had to hate the ted-stella dynamic. the ted-stella relationship turned ted into what i hate the most about his character: a whiney, whimpy, post-modern, metrosexual, with "feelings". those character traits are most certainly un-funny. the show is at its best when ted is free to mess around with marshall, barney, robin, and lilly, not looking like a lost puppy hanging onto stella. second, they can't make stella the mother. the show needs the conflict & resolution of wondering who the mother is to sustain itself, and as far as i know, the show isn't planning on ending anytime soon. third, the wording of the episode never EXPLICITLY said "this is when i met your mother" or something of that nature. the narration leads you to believe that ted meets the mother on the corner, but the wording is crafted in such a way that there is enough wiggle room for it not to be the mother.

one more comment about HIMYM before i get onto the deadliest catch part of this post (sometimes these things get long, don't they?). the character of ted - i have always kinda been on the fence about ted. there are times when i cannot stand him (see stella, relationship with) and there are times when he is great. i have always thought that the producers of HIMYM wanted ted to be a modern john cusack-type character. the first season of HIMYM, ted is clearly a cusack wannabe. they kinda look the same. his character tries to be witty like cusack. ted is an architect - can you imagine any profession more suited for a cusack character than a misanthropic architect? i can't. however, when ted is in john cusack mode, he sucks. the show excels when ted is "just one of the guys", giving shit to marshall and barney. that is the ted i like. i hope there is more of that ted left.

so FINALLY, deadliest catch. some interesting developments:

• i wonder how long matt has aboard the northwestern.  last season he didn't get along with jake very well and this season matt looks like he is slipping a bit and jake is really trying to earn his share as a full deckhand.
• charlie gaspar, the old hungarian dude aboard the new boat lisa marie, is AWESOME.  i can't wait to get to know him better.
• speaking of the lisa marie, man is that boat small!
• i wonder how many boats used to be the size of the lisa marie.  if you go back to the first season of deadliest catch it featured the last season of derby fishing for crab.  derby fishing was a system where the season was open for a set amount of time and the boats could catch as much as they wanted in the alloted timeframe.  however, that changed a few years back  and the state of alaska instituted a quota system where a certain amount of crab could be caught each year.  i don't know if its an overall quota or a per-boat quota, but my guess is that the bigger boats (cornelia marie, time bandit, northwestern) bought up other boats permits so they could increase the size of their catch.  this led to a drastic reduction in the size of the king crab fleet, and i guess was a system that favored the bigger boats.  how the lisa marie, a 75ft. boat can compete with the big boys (some are 150ft. +) is beyond me, but it will be very interesting watching how that boat fishes and comparing it to the others.

And In Keeping With That Theme AGAIN!

i guess i just can't get enough of these pseudo-reality/documentary shows about the outdoors. last night i watched a show on the national geographic channel called "cowboys of the sea". COTS is clearly nat geo's attempt at a deadliest catch ripoff show. the filming style is the same, as are some of the sound effects and storytelling devices the show's producers and directors use. the one difference between COTS and deadliest catch is that COTS features a different kind of fisherman every week, whereas deadliest catch just focuses on the bering sea crab boats.

i saw one previous episode of COTS about the herring (i think it was herring) runs in SE alaska outside valdez. it was very interesting to see how that fishery operates. last night's episode was about halibut and black cod (aka sable fish) fishing off the kenai. the show featured two boats: one was a modern boat equipped with automated fishing gear (baiting of the hooks, setting the lines, reeling in the lines, taking the fish off the hooks, etc..) and an on-board processor, and the other boat was a little more old-school where the crew had to bait and set the lines by hand, as well as taking the fish off the hooks when they came on board. the second boat did not have a processor on-board; they had to pack their fish in ice and deliver it to a processor on the mainland.

one of the interesting things about the show last night was a scene where they were talking to a crewman aboard the modern boat (the crewman looked suspiciously like matt bradley of the northwestern but had a different surname). he was commenting on the automated fishing process aboard the boat. he said something to the effect of how wonderful technology was that they have a machine that baits hooks, and that "who would have thought" there was someone sitting around inventing this technology for them. he couldn't get over the fact that someone would invent this machine.

i thought it was interesting that this guy could feel like that. people invent things all the time. what is that old saying? necessity is the mother of invention? why should fishing be any different? in fact, i thought about this very issue a while back and wrote about it here. if some jewish kid from philadelphia who won't even step foot on a boat in the ocean anymore (i get HORRIBLE sea sickness) has been thinking about this, then someone else closer to the situation certainly has as well.

Mountain Climbers vs. Bering Sea Fishermen

as i have talked about many times before, i love the show "deadliest catch". it captures stories of men that no fiction can replicate. this season has started off with real life drama effecting the fleet: capt. phil can't go out for the season, capt. keith has health issues, capt. sig is getting older, and there is open competition for a spot on the time bandit which is causing some rifts to appear in the crew. on top of all that, last night's episode featured the story of the fishing boat katmai. the katmai sank in a storm and only 4 out of the 11 crew on board managed to survive.

the story of the survivors on the katmai was a harrowing one. the boat started taking on water in the middle of the night. recognizing the danger they were in, the captain ordered his crew into survival suits. all except one managed to get theirs on before the boat went under. soon after entering the water other troubles surfaced amidst 40ft. seas and howling winds: the crew was separated into two lifeboats, 6 in one and 4 in the other (no one from the 4 man boat survived); one crew member had a hole in the boot of his survival suit; one crew member had to remove his suit to fasten the canopy of the life raft; the raft was flipped by a wave causing the half-dressed crewman and the one with the hole on his boot to be tossed far from the raft and both perished. the remaining 4 held on for dear life and managed to survive the night and were rescued by the coast guard the next day.

survival stories like this always fascinate me (see this post on previous stories of heroism on deadliest catch). while watching last night's episode i started to think about survival stories of the fisherman and how they compared to stories of mountain climbers who find themselves caught in survival situations. the keys to survival in both require the same skills: clear thinking, quick action, reliance on teamwork, and the will to survive. both take place under the most adverse conditions on earth. the fishermen have to stay alive fighting the ocean and the weather, the climbers fight the mountain, altitude, and weather. neither situation is one i want to find myself in, but i am still fascinated by these stories because they represent the true epitome of the human spirit and pit man against his most ancient enemy: nature.

i think this is one of the reasons i like going on mountain climbing adventures. even though i have never been in extreme conditions like a lot of the climbers i have read about on mountains like K2 and everest, but there is still an element of danger and imminent death while on the mountain. you can never turn your back on the mountain, no matter how easy the hill is, because once you disrespect mother nature, that is when she gets you. it is that thrill of living on the edge that i enjoy so much, i think. this is not to say i have a death wish or anything or that the climbs i have been on were extremely life threatenting, but there is always that possibility and even at extreme altitudes, it is something you always have to be aware of. mountain climbing is as much of a mental exercise as it is a physical one. i cannot tell you how many times on my way up rainier i wanted to quit because i thought i couldn't make it...but i could and i did. i had the mental toughness to push through to the top.

that bravery and courage is what the members of the katmai exhibited, as well as the members of the rest of the fleet. these guys are tough as nails and will do whatever it takes to get the job done. they all know the risks of the profession, just like mountain climbers do when they embark on a trek. i think this is one of the reasons i like that show so much and watch it with such rapt attention.

Why Is NBC Getting Such Poor Raitings?

all 3 of you that read this blog regularly know my deep fondness for the office and 30 rock. i think both shows are in the top 5 on television today. both have a dedicated spot on my DVR. so it was with great surprise that i read that NBC has fired its programming chief due to low ratings. i can't, for the life of me, figure out why NBC is last in the thursday night ratings. what are these shows going up against? not idol. not monday night football. not even the ratings juggernaut deadliest catch. so what the hell else are people watching? let me rephrase that: why aren't more people watching the office and 30 rock? it makes no sense.

maybe this is another reason i am just a bit outside. i don't watch american idol, so i am clearly out of the loop on the appeal of the most watched show on television. that is probably why shows like 30 rock appeal to me. i wonder how many people out there watch both idol and 30 rock...

There Has To Be An Easier Way

every week i watch "deadliest catch" and every week i think to myself "god, there has to be a better way to fish for crab". it just seems like there are too many moving parts in the process from the big, hulking crane to the 800lb. pots to the ropes the guys have to toss overboard. then, once the crab pot is pulled up with an archaic system of throwing hooks and coiling rope you have to deal with that stupid crane again, the launcher, and sorting bin. oh, and you are doing it in 30ft. seas with 50 knot winds in january on the bering sea. isn't there something wrong with this picture?? i wonder how long crab fishing has been done in this way and i wonder if anyone has tried to improve the process in order to increase efficiency and safety. granted, there are some unavoidable pieces (like being on the bering sea in january), but it just seems so overly complex. who knows, i could be totally wrong and this might be the best way to fish for crab, but it seems like it would be worth looking into to make sure it was.

Heroism And Leadership

***SPOILER ALERT!!!***

tuesday night's episode of "deadliest catch" was one of the most compelling hours of television i have ever seen (i didn't get around to watching it until last night). deadliest catch is REAL reality television in that the cameras record situations as they occur in real life, not like other "reality" shows that create a fake reality with a contrived set of rules and guidelines and boundaries. deadliest catch does none of this. it has no rules nor guidelines nor boundaries. its as real as it gets.

tuesday night's episode featured just how real deadliest catch can be. in it, we saw johnathan hillstrand, captain of the time bandit, save the life of a fisherman who had fallen overboard from another boat. despite having been awake for god knows how long, he reacted immediately when he saw the man go into the water by alerting his crew and positioning his boat in the best place to make a rescue. no one thought, it was automatic. every man knew his job and performed it as if he had done it a hundred times. it was truly something special to watch. you could see the adrenaline running through captain johnathan's body and the raw display of emotion he exhibited towards the man they saved was unforgettable. that was true leadership and heroism. i hope i will remember that for the rest of my life.

there was another, albeit less dramatic, exhibition of leadership on the show last night as well. there was a crewman of the farwest leader who kept on screwing up the hydraulic lift. once, he almost crushed his crew mates with a pot, then later on he snapped on of the lines that controlled the lift, which created a dangerous situation on deck. immediately, one of the more experienced deckhands stepped in and took control of the situation. he began barking orders at his fellow fisherman, but not out of need for ego, but for the necessity of safety. someone needed to step up, and he did. he filled the role perfectly. he did what needed to be done.

one of the most important lessons i learned at w*k was how to function in a group, both as a leader and as a member, and that the two roles are not mutually exclusive. now, some people in this world are better leaders than others. some prefer to stay in the group, rather than take the reigns. this lesson is not easily taught, but if you want to work on an alaskan king crab boat, you better have it.