Whale Wars starts off it’s 3rd season this Friday, June 4th at 9pm Eastern on Animal Planet.  The ad above (which I’ve spent numerous hours staring at on the subway) kinda says it all.  This isn’t a show about whales, it’s a show about these “die hards” (read: crazy people) on a mission to protect them.

Check out this commercial for the new season and then let me tell you all about just why you should watch this show.

Let me start off by saying that I’m not a big Animal Planet fan.  I find most of their shows to be just plain boring.  I’m also not a big “reality” fan, although I do have a weakness for some of the trashy vh1 stuff.  I’ve worked on reality tv and know many of it’s tricks and how unreal it is.  I’m also not an animal rights activist, I’m not even vegetarian.  But I love this show.  And you will too whether or not you agree or disagree with what the Sea Shepards are doing.

So the basics: there’s an organization called the Sea Shepards that was started by one of the co-founders of Greenpeace after he was kicked out of Greenpeace for being too radical (Paul Watson).  They lead campaigns all over the world to actively protect wildlife.  However for the past 2 years (3 now) a documentary crew has followed them as they embark on both a controversial and dangerous mission in the Southern Ocean of Antarctica.  An all volunteer crew, many of them who have never even been on a boat before, travel on the Steve Irwin, a very, very old ship that was never made to sail in antarctic waters and has a 0 ice rated hull (meaning it should never ever under any circumstances be anywhere even close to ice) down to the Southern Ocean to actively try and stop Japanese whalers from killing endangered whales.  This is where the controversy comes into play.  The Japanese are technically doing this legally.  They basically use a loophole in international law that says they can kill a certain amount of different whales each year for research purposes.  However once that whale is dead and the parts taken for research they can do whatever they want with it, such as sell the meat in Japan for a lot of money.

The Sea Shepard foundation goes and does anything they can to stop these guys from killing whales.  They are pretty limited in what they can do, using antiquated equipment and non-violent methods.  Things they do include trying to destroy the props of the whaling ships by tangling it in rope, and throwing a non-toxic but really horrible smelling chemical onto the ships decks to both stop work and taint any whale meat they might get to prevent them from selling it.  This is extremely dangerous and the Japanese fight back hard.  From shooting, to spying, to using a newer system designed for fighting off pirates called an LRAD, they will do whatever it takes to stop the Sea Shepard crew and to keep whaling.

This is a war.  And it’s crazy entertaining.  The previous two seasons have seen things like the Steve Irwin’s hull bent so much that the camera guy literally goes “fuck this shit” and walks off, to captain Paul Watson claiming he’s been shot.  It’s high drama in the middle of nowhere where if something goes wrong there is no one there to save you.  Basically it’s a group of crazy hippies, most of which have no nautical experience, led by a crazier hippy in some of the worst conditions in the world literally fighting with Japanese whalers.

Now I loved the first 2 seasons which I watched last summer when I discovered this show while bored one day.  But I wondered what they could do in a 3rd season that we hadn’t seen before.  I mean you’ve seen them do a lot of crazy shit and I cannot imagine really anything more.  But the first minutes of the first episode of this 3rd season eased my anxieties.  First there’s a new ship.  Along with the old and beat to shit Steve Irwin they have now added the super modern small and fast Ady Gil.  This thing looks like a futuristic speedboat and it and it’s captain sailed around the world in it in 60 days.  They hope to use this to get closer to the whalers in less time and be able to do more.  If you read the news you already have a good idea what fate awaits this vessel but for those who don’t know I won’t spoil it (although the commercial kinda does, WTF Animal Planet?).  Then if that wasn’t enough, they got a $5 million donation from ex “The Price Is Right” host Bob Barker and have bought a new ancient boat, this one aptly named the Bob Barker, has a reinforced hull so it can sail through ice.  However it is still really old and shitty and does not work but this boat is their secret.  They’ve been repairing it in secret and although they can’t get it in working order by the end of the first episode, they have high hopes for the new vessel.

They haven’t really changed anything on board the old Steve Irwin except for adding some spikes to the outside to prevent boarding attempts, although the Sea Shepard’s are the only one’s who have boarded another vessel (see Season 1).

Overall this is a great show packed with great, REAL, drama and it is definitely worth your time.  Check it out on Animal Planet this Friday at 9pm Eastern or you can watch previous seasons (I’m sure season 3 will show up there soon for non-Animal Planet getters) on . Seasons 1 & 2 are also available on DVD from Amazon: