“Whale Wars”
8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21
Animal Planet
We like whales as much as the next guy. They’re graceful, they’re big, and they’re the animal kingdom’s undisputed masters of the cannonball. Still, you’d think if they were so smart, they’d have come up with a way to fend off the whaling fleet – head-mounted lasers, perhaps; or maybe just by going Moby Dick on their harpoon-shooting asses with a bit more frequency. Until that happens, though, it’s up to humans to protect them. And by “humans,” we mean filthy, dreadlock-wearing hippies. That’s where the folks on “Whale Wars” come in. The show follows the fortunes of a crew of newbie sailors – mostly college kids who want to do something real for the environment – on a journey to Antarctica to try and disrupt the activities of Japanese whalers who stalk their prey there. From their floating home base – a boat called the “Steve Irwin” (uh, oh … insert your own morbid joke here) – they employ everything from an on-board helicopter to super stinkbombs to inflatable speedboats to try and either run off the whalers or scare the whales into heading elsewhere. While that’s dangerous enough, it’s definitely not an environment where you want to be in the middle of on-the-job training. The water, for instance, is so cold that if you go in the drink for even a few minutes, you come out a very dead hippie-sicle. Add to that some seriously pissed off whalers and law-free international waters, and you’ve got a war that lives up to its name.
—David Koon