David*Macinnis*Gill.com

The Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel has a show I’m sure you’ve seen or heard about, Dead­liest Catch.  It’s a run­ning series about a fleet of real-life crab­bers work­ing the Bering Sea.  The money’s is fan­tas­tic, the weather is wretched, and the chances of fish­er­men dying are pretty high.

Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel has another series, Lob­ster­men, about a group of lob­ster fish­er­men off the coast of Cape Cod.  The weather’s not as bad, the money’s not as good, and the chance of death and dis­mem­ber­ment is noth­ing com­pared to fish­ing the ice pack on the Bering Sea.

 Both shows have the same pro­duc­tion val­ues, the same cam­era work, and the same script­ing.  There are boats and water and salty, tough guys break­ing their backs to make a liv­ing.  They show be equally enter­tain­ing, but they’re not.  Not even close.  Dead­liest Catch. is much, much more engag­ing.

Because of stakes.

The stakes are much big­ger on Dead­liest Catch.  More money, big­ger fish­ing pots, big­ger waves, more ice, more things to go wrong, more men work­ing on the edge to win big.  You never know when something’s going to go ter­ri­bly wrong or when one sin­gle pot will be worth 25 grand. This is real life, but it’s also a reminder that what engages view­ers is the same thing that engages readers.

If you haven’t watched Dead­liest Catch, you’re miss­ing out, I tell you what.