Deadliest Catch is an American reality television series that premiered on the Discovery Channel on April 12, 2005. The show follows crab fishermen aboard fishing vessels in the Bering Sea during the Alaskan king crab and snow crab fishing seasons. The base of operations for the fishing fleet is the Aleutian Islands port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Produced for the Discovery Channel, the show's title is derived from the inherent high risk of injury or death associated with this line of work.
Premiere
Deadliest Catch premiered on the Discovery Channel in 2005 and currently airs worldwide. The first season consisted of ten episodes, with the finale airing on June 14, 2005. Subsequent seasons have aired on the same April to June or July schedule every year since.
The show's 18th season premiered on April 19, 2022, and was simulcast on Discovery Channel and the streaming service Discovery+.
Format
The series follows a fisherman's life on the Bering Sea aboard various crab fishing boats during two of the crab fishing seasons, the October king crab season and the January opilio crab season. The show emphasizes the dangers on deck to the fishermen and camera crews as they duck heavy crab pots swinging into position, maneuver hundreds of pounds of crab across a deck strewn with hazards, and lean over the rails to position pots for launch or retrieval, while gale-force winds and high waves lash the deck constantly.
Each episode focuses on a story, situation, or theme that occurs on one or more boats. In contrast, side stories delve into the backgrounds and activities of one or two crew members, particularly the "greenhorns" (rookie crew members) on several boats. The fleet's captains are featured prominently, highlighting their camaraderie with their fellow captains and relationships with their crews, as well as their competition with other boats in the hunt for crab. Common themes include friendly rivalries among the captains (particularly between Sig Hansen of the F/V Northwestern and Johnathan and Andy Hillstrand of the F/V Time Bandit), the familial ties throughout the fleet (brothers Sig, Norm, and Edgar Hansen, who own the Northwestern; the Hillstrand brothers and Johnathan's son Scotty on the F/V Time Bandit; brothers Keith and Monte Colburn of the Wizard), the stresses of life on the Bering Sea, and the high burnout rate among greenhorns.
Because Alaskan crab fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, the U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopters stationed at Integrated Support Command Kodiak (Kodiak, Alaska) and their outpost on St. Paul Island, near the northern end of the crab fishing grounds, are frequently shown rescuing crab boat crew members who fall victim to the harsh conditions on the Bering Sea. The USCG rescue squad was featured prominently during the episodes surrounding the loss of F/V Big Valley in January 2005, the loss of F/V Ocean Challenger in October 2006, and the loss of F/V Katmai in October 2008. Original Productions keeps a camera crew stationed with the Coast Guard during the filming of the show in preparation for such occurrences.
Narration
The show has no on-camera host. A narrator provides commentary connecting the storylines as the show shifts from one boat to another. Discovery Channel voice artist Mike Rowe narrates the action for North American airings. In the UK, voice artist Bill Petrie serves as narrator. The show transitions between boats using a mock-up radar screen that shows the positions of the ships relative to one another and the two ends of the fishing grounds, St. Paul Island to the north and Dutch Harbor to the south.
Rowe was originally supposed to be the on-camera host, and he appeared in taped footage as himself during the first season of shooting. As filming of the first season was nearing completion, Discovery greenlit production on another Rowe project, Dirty Jobs, under the condition that Rowe chose only one show on which to appear on camera. Most of the footage Rowe shot during the first season became part of the first season's "Behind the Scenes" episode. After the third season of Deadliest Catch, Rowe began hosting a post-season behind-the-scenes miniseries entitled After the Catch, which is a roundtable discussion featuring the captains relating their experiences filming the previous season's episodes.