Chigworthy
11-11-2011, 06:50 AM
I've been watching this show on Netflix like a fucking idiot lately. What a godawful show.
I remember when this show started a few years ago. It was reality garbage, but it was a new topic: Logging in the Pacific NW done in the Deadliest Catch style. It showed how several large companies logged in various locations, and had a clownish tiny outfit that salvaged submerged logs from river bottoms. It had the regular reality show gimmicks like creative editing, but it still felt somewhat "real".
It was just added to Netfliz, so I thought I'd check out what I'd missed over seasons 2-4. It is hilarious how bad this show has become.
The show has installed a competition between the various crews and made that the focus. The logging crews pretend that trying to get more loads off the hill than another company 500 miles away is more important than the job itself.
The editing is atrocious. They splice and reuse so much footage that you will literally see someone's clothes completely change while they are up in a tree. They will use the same shot of someone saying something dramatic during 2-3 different events.
The sound effects are so disjointed. If they show a loose run of cable on the ground, they foley in the dramatic sound of tightly strung cable about to break. They actually used the cable sound effect when a truck was pulling rope. They have one clip of someone yelling "Get out of the way!" that they play constantly during the show.
They have to go into every commercial break with a fake dramatic moment. This usually means showing a log falling and having the narrator say that "Tragedy strikes." When they come back from break, it is quickly revealed that tragedy did not strike, but someone was about 30 feet from a log falling. If tragedy strikes in the middle of a segment, they establish the tragedy tease, a log falling, a cable breaking, a rock rolling down the hill. Then they have the other crew yell out someone's name a few times. Then they have silence for about 30 seconds, implying that someone was injured so bad, they cannot speak. Then they play a dramatic Tympani hit, and suddenly the "victim" yells back "I'm OK!", as though in real life when your buddies yell out concern for you, you wait a few dramatic beats to build tension before replying.
I'm watching season 4 now, and it is on a whole new level of fakeness. Now they are actually staging huge dramatic vignettes as though it is reality. One such event had the river crew trailering their boat to the river. The camera work sets up nicely that the trailer is not hitched properly by focusing on one of the loggers not locking down the hitch. Luckily, for the first time during the whole show, the camera crew has attached a camera on the tail gate looking down at the hitch as the truck drives off. As though a camera crew will watch someone hitch a trailer improperly and not say something, but rig up a camera on the tailgate. And then the loggers will see them rigging the camera and not check the hitch. And then the producers will allow them to drive on a purportedly public road hauling a trailer that could come off the hitch cause serious injury or death. When the trailer comes off the hitch, thank Bejeezus that there are no other vehicles on the road. It's almost like unseen forces have prevented other motorists from being on the road.
Another fake incident was the missing logger gag. On an Alaskan crew, they actually staged a logger going missing. It takes place on a remote island that is being logged. The whole crew has to boat into the island every morning because it is completely undeveloped. After a few epsiodes, all of the sudden there is a logger that lives on the island in a trailer with his dog. Apparently everyone else somehow knows that the logger went on a hike of the island the night before and didn't return to his trailer. They all know this back on the mainland before they have even left for the island at 3:30 AM. Well it sets up a very dramatic search effort where from 4 AM until 4 PM, the logging crew executes a trained and equipped search effort. A new logger that hasn't been seen before suddenly has a bloodhound that is trained for SAR work. Another logger can read tracks on a gravel road better than Tanto himself. Of course the authorities don't show up until 4 PM but they can only search until 6 PM because it will be dark. Right at the last minute, they find the missing logger. It does not appear that the sun is even close to going down. He is allegedly at some remote part of the island and is lost. Although he lives on the island, he decided to hike after dark and got lost. Unfortunately for the realism of the show, you can see big spools of cable and other equipment in the background where the "missing" logger spent the sub-zero night, where he had to "cover himself in moss" to stay alive. There is no moss on his clothes.
Deliciously bad.
I remember when this show started a few years ago. It was reality garbage, but it was a new topic: Logging in the Pacific NW done in the Deadliest Catch style. It showed how several large companies logged in various locations, and had a clownish tiny outfit that salvaged submerged logs from river bottoms. It had the regular reality show gimmicks like creative editing, but it still felt somewhat "real".
It was just added to Netfliz, so I thought I'd check out what I'd missed over seasons 2-4. It is hilarious how bad this show has become.
The show has installed a competition between the various crews and made that the focus. The logging crews pretend that trying to get more loads off the hill than another company 500 miles away is more important than the job itself.
The editing is atrocious. They splice and reuse so much footage that you will literally see someone's clothes completely change while they are up in a tree. They will use the same shot of someone saying something dramatic during 2-3 different events.
The sound effects are so disjointed. If they show a loose run of cable on the ground, they foley in the dramatic sound of tightly strung cable about to break. They actually used the cable sound effect when a truck was pulling rope. They have one clip of someone yelling "Get out of the way!" that they play constantly during the show.
They have to go into every commercial break with a fake dramatic moment. This usually means showing a log falling and having the narrator say that "Tragedy strikes." When they come back from break, it is quickly revealed that tragedy did not strike, but someone was about 30 feet from a log falling. If tragedy strikes in the middle of a segment, they establish the tragedy tease, a log falling, a cable breaking, a rock rolling down the hill. Then they have the other crew yell out someone's name a few times. Then they have silence for about 30 seconds, implying that someone was injured so bad, they cannot speak. Then they play a dramatic Tympani hit, and suddenly the "victim" yells back "I'm OK!", as though in real life when your buddies yell out concern for you, you wait a few dramatic beats to build tension before replying.
I'm watching season 4 now, and it is on a whole new level of fakeness. Now they are actually staging huge dramatic vignettes as though it is reality. One such event had the river crew trailering their boat to the river. The camera work sets up nicely that the trailer is not hitched properly by focusing on one of the loggers not locking down the hitch. Luckily, for the first time during the whole show, the camera crew has attached a camera on the tail gate looking down at the hitch as the truck drives off. As though a camera crew will watch someone hitch a trailer improperly and not say something, but rig up a camera on the tailgate. And then the loggers will see them rigging the camera and not check the hitch. And then the producers will allow them to drive on a purportedly public road hauling a trailer that could come off the hitch cause serious injury or death. When the trailer comes off the hitch, thank Bejeezus that there are no other vehicles on the road. It's almost like unseen forces have prevented other motorists from being on the road.
Another fake incident was the missing logger gag. On an Alaskan crew, they actually staged a logger going missing. It takes place on a remote island that is being logged. The whole crew has to boat into the island every morning because it is completely undeveloped. After a few epsiodes, all of the sudden there is a logger that lives on the island in a trailer with his dog. Apparently everyone else somehow knows that the logger went on a hike of the island the night before and didn't return to his trailer. They all know this back on the mainland before they have even left for the island at 3:30 AM. Well it sets up a very dramatic search effort where from 4 AM until 4 PM, the logging crew executes a trained and equipped search effort. A new logger that hasn't been seen before suddenly has a bloodhound that is trained for SAR work. Another logger can read tracks on a gravel road better than Tanto himself. Of course the authorities don't show up until 4 PM but they can only search until 6 PM because it will be dark. Right at the last minute, they find the missing logger. It does not appear that the sun is even close to going down. He is allegedly at some remote part of the island and is lost. Although he lives on the island, he decided to hike after dark and got lost. Unfortunately for the realism of the show, you can see big spools of cable and other equipment in the background where the "missing" logger spent the sub-zero night, where he had to "cover himself in moss" to stay alive. There is no moss on his clothes.
Deliciously bad.