Deadliest Catch's Top 10 Episodes

Deadliest Catch is now in its fifth season, and is still going strong. Here, I have chosen the ten best episodes. Since there were so many good ones to choose from, I picked two favorites from each season.

Deadliest Catch Season One Favorites

In season one, my two favorite are Dead of Winter and Man Overboard. I chose these episodes not for their entertainment value, but because they portray the harsh reality that the men are facing on a daily basis. In this episode, the fishing boat Big Valley issues a distress signal. The Coast Guard sends out a helicopter to search, but they cannot locate the ship or any of the men. In the morning, the wreckage is found, along with one life raft containing the deck boss, who had managed to put on a survival suit. He reported that the ship capsized and sank fast. Four of his crewmates died. In the following episode, the final crew member was found, but he was also dead, bringing the death toll to five. In the same episode, a man falls overboard on the Sultan, and the season begins with six lives lost in the first twenty-four hours.

Deadliest Catch Season Two Favorites

I think that the best episodes in season two were Race Against the Ice and Cashing In. These were the final two episodes of the season. In the first episode, we see the strain and pressure mounting as the crews try to pull through to the end of the season. The men begin suffering from fatigue, minor injuries, and mental miscalculations, all in the face of worsening conditions and the approaching ice pack. In Cashing In, we get to see the finale, which is always a good show. Hard decisions are made on when to throw in the towel. Families are reunited, and everyone gets a paycheck.

Deadliest Catch Season Three Favorites

In season three, my first favorite is Cheating Death. In this episode, we see the sheer exhaustion of the job. As the crew of the Time Bandit heads below deck for some much needed rest, the final man on deck is swallowed by a wave and swept overboard. Thanks to the quick action of his captain and crew, he is saved. The man and his captain are overwhelmed with emotion. In Trial of the Greenhorns, we see Captain Sig and his brother challenging each other to do the other's job. They lasted a while, but both finally admitted that they would not want to stay there. Jake takes on the challenged of working the rail under "Sig's rules," which meant losing an article of clothing for each miss. He did a good job even though he was cold in the end.

Deadliest Catch Season Four Favorites

The best episodes in season four are Get 'Em Back Safe! and Striking Out. Get 'Em Back Safe is the first episode of the season, and it has a lot of fun in it. Jake takes his Dad's credit card and goes on a shopping spree, buying a large screen TV. He gets caught. The Time Bandit plans to play a prank on the Cornelia Marie, so they load an old pickup truck onto their boat and try to hide it. Later, they switch it out with one of the Cornelia Marie's crab pots. My second favorite is the next episode. You can't watch the trick being planned without seeing it played out. In this episode, the Cornelia Marie crew struggles with one of the pots, because they are actually pulling up a truck. Everyone has a laugh, and Captain Harris rates the prank as an A+.

Deadliest Catch Season Five Favorites

The humor of the previous season is lost at the beginning of season five, when tragedy strikes again in Red Skies in the Morning. A distress call is issued by the Katmai. The Coast Guard locates a raft and rescues four crew members, including the captain. The remaining men perished, a grim reminder of the dangers everyone are facing. In Stay Focused or Die, the survivors recount their final hours on the boat and how they survived.

These are my ten favorite episodes of Deadliest Catch. I'm sure that more will be added to this list in the future.