Catch stays captivating
Deadliest Catch is the granddaddy of blue-collar, outdoor working shows and one could be forgiven for thinking that, after nine seasons, stories about cash-strapped crab fishermen trying to eke out a living from some of the roughest seas known to humankind would get a little old. As last week’s brooding, eerily dramatic season-opener proved, though, each new crab season brings with it new worries, new complications and new conflicts.
When the season opened, some of the boats were still undergoing costly repairs, their crews unable to put out to sea. Debts were piling up for those who did make it, and at least one crab fisherman, deckhand Josh Harris, is hoping to reclaim the legacy left by his late father, Capt. Phil Harris, captain and part owner of the crab-fishing boat Cornelia Marie. The older Harris died in February 2010.
This season’s conflict was established before the boats even put out of port. Deadliest Catch is all about the clash between generations this season and how old hands, desperate to cling to their livelihoods, show little patience for wet-behind-the-ears upstarts who are all attitude and no work ethic. (Discovery Channel — 8 p.m.)
Amanda Knox, the young Seattle student whose conviction for the 2009 murder of her English roommate in Italy was overturned after Knox served four years, sits down with Diane Sawyer on 20/20. (ABC — 11 p.m.)
The Voice, TV’s most buzzed-about reality show, faces some real competition on the first night of an NHL playoff round with no obvious front-runner. (NBC, CTV — 9 p.m.)
It’s not good when a diner finds a hair in her food. When she’s eating steak on Hell’s Kitchen, and chef Gordon Ramsay is hovering in the kitchen, all hell is about to break loose. (Fox, Citytv — 9 p.m.)