On the other hand...
Posted on 07/13/2010 7:03:17 PM PDT by Bratch
"I'm not gonna be here for very much longer," said Phil Harris, the hard-living captain of the crab fishing vessel Corneila Marie in a recent episode of Discovery Channel's unscripted series "Deadliest Catch." "That's a fact. I smoke and I drink. I've done every drug known to man. I mean, hell -- it catches up to you."
It caught up to Capt. Phil in January, when he suffered a stroke not long after the above statement was recorded. The show's producers were thrown into a quandary. "Deadliest Catch" is known for its commitment to reality -- in the documentary sense of the word, as opposed to the corrupt facsimile associated with the so-called "reality TV," a genre consisting mainly of glorified game shows and deranged sociological experiments. But catastrophe and suffering are innately cinematic. Even a sensitive documentarian might look at the "Deadliest Catch" camera crew's post-stroke footage and think, "This is a motherlode," then set about repackaging pain as entertainment. The task was daunting: In a genre that has captured endless humiliation, violence and other human suffering, here was reality TV's first death.
Remarkably, "Deadliest Catch" handles the captain's passing, which culminates in tonight's finale (9 p.m. on Discovery), with intelligence and taste. During this season, with the consent of Harris' family, the cameras kept rolling as the Coast Guard flew the captain to a hospital. They caught his sons (and fellow boatmates) Josh and Jake fretting over whether to cut the fishing season short or sail on. They showed doctors trying to relieve pressure on his brain by removing a piece of his skull, and his family and crewmates coping in the aftermath. At no point did the series succumb to dumb voyeurism.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
I’d rather have real flawed characters than the make believe beautiful people that the entertainment industry is always pushing...
On the other hand...
for the record, I don’t admire men like the Captain....drugs, etc....but I respect that he worked for a living and didn’t deny that he lived life hard....we probably need more of his type and less of the so called Harvard “elite”...
Harvard is the center of everything that is wrong with this country; from business to philosophy by way of history. If change has to come - that would be an excellent place to start.
I really love this show and “After the Catch” as well.
Please explain?,
I have just watched the show, and to me they are not “playing” it up, but it is more like an Irish wake.
A celebration of a friends and family members life..
The drugs were in the Captain’s past. I assume your past is without blemish?
The Deadliest Catch is the modern day Jack London novel. Our lives have become void of adventure and society short on men among men like Captain Harris. We have become just a bunch of weak politically correct lemmings.
agreed - my favorite
I have seen over a dozen commercials for this on multiple channels. This is no better than the way the John and Kate plus 8 divorse/affair was sensationalized and marketed. It is morbid, and playing on pain and suffering for money. Will they not track their ratings? Will they not increase their rates for the show? Seriously, this is a sad instance for a good show, but why do we really feel we have a part in it? I feel for the families and friends, but we are just viewers looking in the fish bowl. You are free to feel however you feel, and I feel the way I feel. I am sorry he is gone.
I worked in the Bering Sea (fish, not crab) in the late 80s. Drugs were known to be a big problem back then. The isolation, danger, boredom drove the attraction of drugs and alcohol. The cameraman would have been a convenient way for Jake to get drugs but any trip into port would have also been a handy way to maintain a drug habit. And men on those boats have the money to pay for it.
Wife just said: “last old Viking died”.... Nuf said.
Well I guess because I do not the zombie box all that much I have not seen all of the adverts on the other channels.
Thanks for the reply...
Adios..
This is a great show, though one I suspected I wouldn’t like. We’re so saddened by the Captain’s death.
Great photo!
It made me think of my youngest brother who was a river boat pilot. Those folks work hard and some of them play even harder.It caught up with him at the tender age of 45 - much too young like Capt. Phil.RIP.
Me too, and probably a hundred radio commercials over the past week as well. They may have handled the show itself fairly well (though I must admit being uncomfortable with the boys fighting on camera and the shots of Phil in the hospital toward the end)but the endless commercials had all the charm of a wild west undertaker selling glimpses of the gunslinger's corpse for a nickle.
Somewhere inside of him, subconsciously, he knew the end was coming soon. I’ve seen something similar happen with a family member.
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