Series Description

The Deadliest Catch TV show was a 60 minute reality series on the Discovery Channel about the dangers that the Captains and crews aboard fishing boats face while crab fishing in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. The dangers that these brave men face include freezing temperatures, waves so large that they totally engulf the ships, ice jams that can hold a ship prisoner and serious accidents that can leave a crew member critically injured and days from a hospital!

Deadliest Catch Theme Song

Title: "Wanted Dead or Alive"

By: "Bon Jovi"

Another place, where the faces are so cold
I drive all night, just to get back home

I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride
I'm wanted ... dead or alive

Deadliest Catch Trivia:

If you think that the dangers of crab fishing are overly dramatized on Deadliest Catch, think again! Statistically, more crab fishermen die on the job per hour worked than any other job in the world!

Deadliest Catch is produced by "Original Productions". That company also produces many other reality series including "Ice Road Truckers", "America's Toughest Jobs" and "Monster Garage".

The crabbing vessels on Deadliest Catch are based in Unalaska, Alaska's Dutch Harbor located in the Aleutian Islands.

The Captains fish for King Crab on the first half of each season's episodes and then move on to Opilio crab (commonly called snow crab) fishing for the remainder of each season's episodes. The crews only get a few months to rest up between fishing the two as King Crab fishing takes place in October and Opilio Crab in January.

While the Cornelia Marie, the Wizard, the Northwestern, and the Time Bandit are the four vessels highlighted on the show, another vessel or two often appear in each season. These appearances often result due to a serious injury or even a death on another ship.

The U.S. Coast Guard station based in Kodiak, Alaska occasionally sends a rescue crew when a vessel sinks or a crew member needs medical attention. The Deadliest Catch crew has a full time camera crew assigned to the Coast Guard so they don't miss any of the action when such an emergency takes place.

The men who work on crabbing vessels are a hardy lot and, as one might expect, their language often becomes profane. Unlike most reality series that "bleep" out the vulgarities, the Deadliest Catch uses more inventive methods such as an eruption of static from the radio or a blast from the ship's horn to keep the censors happy.

Many TV shows use one narrator for English speaking audiences and others to accomodate foreign language broadcasts but Deadliest Catch takes this one step further than most. Mike Rowe narrates the series for viewers in North America and Bill Petrie narrates the show for European fans who appreciate his more familiar British accent and his use of British Idioms and expressions.

The amazing shots caught by the cameramen are no accident! Two cameramen are stationed on each vessel, one on the bridge and one on deck. Four addition cameras are mounted around each ship for a view of virtually all of the action on board. Other cameras are often used on crab pots, chase vessels, mounted underwater on the vessels, in helicopters and even in a mini submarine vessel!

The crew of the Saga wears 686 gear which is high tech outwear that protects the crew from all of the artic weather conditions that they experience on board. It protects them from severe winds, ice and freezing water.

Deadliest Catch is the only episodic documentary/reality series filmed nearly exclusively at sea!