Am I the only a-hole who watches this show? I love it. I watch it on HD On Demand on the weekends while I'm eating breakfast or lunch or whatever. It's highly entertaining. It's got two things going for it:

1. beautiful in HD. the landscape is great.
2. So much unintentional comedy. Though there cause is probably noble, Paul Watson and his volunteers are such morons that they fail and bumble through everything.

So far this year is delivering. 2 new ships in Watson's fleet. An icebreaker donated by Bob Barker and a highspeed boat called the Ady Gil.

Failure right out of the gate with the two new ships being late to the campaign. Japanese on the offensive. Next episode looks crazy. One of the harpoon boats trying to crash into the Ady Gil.

Haven't watched it too much, but agree it's a pretty good eating-breakfast-on-a-sunday show. My favorite moment so far is when Watson decides to try to be an idiotic bad ass and navigate his ship (which doesn't have an ice hull/ice breaker) through a field of ice to get away from the Japanese ship trailing him. They manage to get to the other side without sinking, only to find the ship sitting there waiting for them.

Watson is an arrogant self-righteous douche-bag. When he finally gets some kid killed that he's brainwashed maybe they'll put him away.

When I watch the show I root for the Japanese which is good for me because they always win.

FWIW, I'm not pro-whaling, I'm just anti-megalomaniac, incompetent douche-bag.

yeah that was great.

this season is missing the 1st mate from last season. That guy was an epic moron. He'd constantly mock the young guys using their radar and ice charts, override their decisions, and get them lost.

I've only watched occasionally when I stumble on this show. Is their only goal to make the Japanese boats stinky with sulfuric acid? What else do they do if they get near the boats?

try to drop prop foulers to muck up their engines and slow them down. i don't think they've ever successfully disabled a ship with a prop fouler, but I think they've slowed down a couple.

and if they're chasing the factory ship and can hang close enough, they can prevent the harpoon ships from bringing in fresh kills, so they cost them money that way as well.

I haven't spent much time thinking it through, but the whole thing seems like a gigantic, inefficient waste of money. They have three vessels, have to feed the **** load of crew members (they've got an army on that one boat), expenses, all of that, and how many whales have they actually "saved"?

I fear for anyone watching this show and rooting for the environmentalists, it's so much fun to root against them and laugh as they screw up over and over.

Ok, one more question that maybe can be answered before I try to google it. How does this naval engagement work in terms of legality? If someone shoots sulfuric acid at my boat can I shoot a cannon at their motor? When can guns get involved or boat ramming and be considered "self defense"

Why are people still hunting whales? I thought that stopped back in the late 1800's?

They wouldn't be able to make any money if their crusades were more than just attention whoring.

Because they taste good.

The South Park version of this show is pretty good lol

haha

I almost want to start watching this for the lols

Love this show. Stupid overly-emotional people making potentially life threatening decisions in the arctic = good tv. Plus penguins sometimes.

I root for the Japanese team. I also root for the Globetrotters in basketball. Winner winner chicken dinner.

I've always wondered, though, when that skinny Peter dude whose nose you can see all the way up talks about taking "appropriate actions" if the Japanese vessel becomes too aggressive, what the hell is the "appropriate action"? Would he dare moon them?

that's the whole point. What Dudd said. Though I think my dad "roots" for the enviros, he still sees the lulz in it.

I wouldn't say I root for the Japanese though. I think what they're doing is pretty effed. I root for lulz, which usually means the sea shepherds losing.

dunno. there was a boat ramming last season. Not sure what flag they fly under now, but it was the Dutch last season, and they said they'd revoke their status if they continued throwing any projectiles at the Japanese, which lead to them just following them around.

I just got into this and it's hilarious. I have yet to see them save one whale. The show almost makes me want to be a crew member of the Nisshin Maru.

watched the last 3 episodes, it seems the goal is to bankrupt the Japanese and save whales that way

I mean their whole gameplan is to throw rancid butter at them, or get lucky with a prop fouler its pretty lol

I caught the episodes that were on last night, and the best line was definitely them taking credit for saving the whales as the Nisshin Maru sailed off into the distance, because if they're going fast, they're less effective. I also loved that as they were ranting and raving about how horrible it was that the Japanese dared ram them, the cameras kept lingering on their shirts and posters which boasted of all the ships they had rammed and sank. So good.

if you read Bethune's wiki (the captain of the ady gill), it's pretty crazy.

Also, that ship killed a fisherman in a collision while going for an around-the-world speed record. ugh.

Japanese definitely seem to be in the wrong in this collision, but it was pretty funny that they were all joking around like "oh we're so scared" then BOOM. who's laughing now? Also, though it's pretty ****ed up they came and hit you, if you're going to talk about how this is a war and you're willing to risk your lives and do what it takes, maybe you should expect they treat you the same way, and you shouldn't kill your engines before you're clear of danger.

this confused me, as I don't think Sea Shepherds have ever sunk anybody.

and understand nobody ever has, or ever will win a war using only rancid butter and prop foulers

Has a prop fouler ever worked?

just saw that episode, and wow it was 10 times better than I could have imagined

I was just talking to my dad about this ep, and he was pretty pissed at Bethune (ady Gil cpt). He couldn't believe a captain of a boat treated his crew's safety with such disregard. Just total negligence. After the initial shock of the whole event, how on earth aren't Watson and crew members grilling this guy? How can you sit on your deck laughing while a ship 12 times your boat's size is moving in your general direction? Not even considering that you've been fighting these guys. That only makes it worse. You should be even more cautious in that case.