Lobster Wars gets “NY Times” attention

In an article titled, “Riding the Waves, Sometimes the Lobster Traps” by Ned Martel, the newest Original Productions creation that’s currently airing on Discovery every Thursday night at 9pm eastern, gets an appropriate review that does justice to these new types of shows that surpass competition-type “reality” shows seen on other networks, by bringing “real life” to our homes!

Leo Vitale, left, and Francesco Vitale, right, at work in “Lobster Wars” on the Discovery Channel.  (Photo courtesy of Discovery)

“The Discovery Channel has figured something out with its reality series: Manly viewers will watch manual labor. Whether in “Dirty Jobs” or “The Deadliest Catch,” workplace tensions erupt in suspenseful episodes seasoned with gritty insults and an undercurrent of danger. Now Discovery’s latest thrill ride, “Lobster Wars,” whose third episode has its debut tonight, adds Yankee flavor, with New England seafarers pulling in catches and putting one another down.

It’s a rusty hull of a series — scarred, sturdy, going places — and it brings to mind the deckhand dynamics of Patrick O’Brian novels, with contemporary wild boys cracking wise and standing on sliding lobster traps until the last second before the cages tumble off the open stern. The mates call it trap riding, and suddenly this riveting program — with a soundtrack that echoes Big Country and the Waterboys — seems like “The Perfect Storm” meets “Jackass.”

The seas roil, and the camera pitches back and forth. Rogue waves crash on deck. A rival boat bobs on the horizon. The series follows five crews from ports of call in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Even under gray skies there are eyefuls of color: the pink buoys, the safety-orange overalls, the green nylon lines, the blue rubber gloves, the red underside of a grabber claw.

Above all “Lobster Wars” documents one salty truism: Life on the seas is rife with entanglements.”…(there’s more)

Read the entire story by making the jump