TV Talk: ‘Deadliest Catch’ returns; ‘The Nevers’ debuts on HBO

Westmoreland City native Wild Bill Wichrowski is back on Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” for a covid-impacted season of crab fishing.

Due to the pandemic, the state of Alaska didn’t do its annual crab survey, leaving crab fisherman to guess the best spots to fish when the season began last fall.

In the season premiere — now streaming on discovery+ and airing on the linear Discovery cable channel at 8 p.m. April 20th (the same day episode two premieres on discovery+) — Sig Hansen tries to get the “Deadliest Catch” captains to pool information on where they find the crab. His colleagues are skeptical that they’ll all remain honest.

“These guys are all liars,” Wichrowski said in a phone interview last week, a few days after finishing the 2020-21 crab fishing seasons. “They’re fishermen: You can’t trust them.”

Wichrowski, 63, said this was his 42nd year of crab fishing and it begins with a scare: A possible covid-19 case among Wichrowski’s crew. That storyline gets resolved in the premiere but Wichrowski wishes the show offered closure on an earlier plot.

Several seasons ago Wichrowski’s son, Zack Larson, appeared on “Deadliest Catch,” which portrayed the father and son at loggerheads.

Wichrowski said he and his son get along fine now, talk regularly and have houses in the same town in Mexico. (Larson’s mostly involved in tendering and fishing cod, not crab, so he’s no longer on “Deadliest Catch.”)

“They left it with us still at odds and people watch the reruns and tell me, ‘You’re the worst dad on the planet,’ and I’m like, oh my God, that was six years ago,” Wichrowski said. “There’s never really been an on-screen resolution but in life there is a resolution.”

Wichrowski continues to be involved in sport fishing in the off-season; he doesn’t make it back to Western Pennsylvania often.

He gets recognized regularly when in public.

“It’s amazing, every time I meet somebody, I’m their favorite captain,” he said, before they ask, “What boat are you on?”

Currently it’s Summer Bay.

“(The show) has opened a lot of doors,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of interesting stuff from being on the show. People are enthralled with it, especially in the sport fishing world. There’s a lot of high-test people and they do high-test things and I’ve been fortunate enough to get drug along with a lot of it.”

‘The Nevers’

After allegations of workplace misconduct against writer/director Joss Whedon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Justice League”), how are viewers to approach the latest Whedon production, HBO’s “The Nevers” (9 p.m. Sunday), which he departed last fall midway through the show’s first season?

It would fit a tidy narrative if “The Nevers” was terrible … but it’s not. The rollicking pilot, which Whedon wrote and directed, is the most unexpectedly entertaining, hour-long TV joyride so far this year.

A supernatural event in 1896 Victorian London gives people, mostly women, unusual abilities (conjuring fireballs, glimpsing the future, etc.). Called “the touched,” these people are both feared and desired.

This genre mashup (shades of “The Wild Wild West”) follows gruff widow Amalia True (Laura Donnelly) and kindly inventor Penance Adair (Ann Skelly) as they make a home for the touched at an orphanage (shades of “The X-Men”) funded by benefactress Lavinia Bidlow (Olivia Williams, Whedon’s “Dollhouse”).

Penance, who will remind Whedon fans of Willow in “Buffy” and Kaylee in “Firefly,” creates inventions that give “The Nevers” a steampunk vibe. True’s penchant for fisticuffs, reminiscent of the leads of every past Whedon show, ensures action aplenty as “The Nevers” develops characters alongside an engrossing, deepening mythology.

In early episodes “The Nevers” introduces too many characters and sub-plots for the show’s own good, including a gruff-but-ultimately-sympathetic cop (Ben Chaplin), a nasty government official (Pip Torrens), a crazed doctor (Denis O’Hare) and the proprietor (James Norton, “Grantchester”) of a den of inequity.

And then there’s the Whedon of it all. I’m inclined to agree with the host of a “Buffy” podcast who told the New York Times, the “Buffy” story “is not just Joss Whedon’s.” And “The Nevers” story is not just Whedon’s either. His frequent collaborator, Jane Espenson, who as far as I know has not commented on the accusations against Whedon, is also a writer on “The Nevers,” which has a new showrunner, Philippa Gosslett (“Mar Magdalene”), for the second half of the first season, which will air at a later date. The first six episodes of “The Nevers” debut weekly through May 16.

‘Rebel’

Katey Sagal always makes a strong impression. From “Married… With Children” to “Sons of Anarchy” to “The Conners” and now in ABC’s “Rebel” (10 p.m. Thursday, WTAE-TV), Sagal improves whatever project she’s in.

That’s good and necessary because the “Rebel” pilot, airing April 8, has so much clunky exposition it practically begs viewers to bail.

Inspired by the work of Erin Brockovich, whose life was previously the basis for a 2000 Julia Roberts film, “Rebel” (10 p.m. Thursday, WTAE-TV) is a fairly straight-forward serialized drama – Sagal’s Annie “Rebel” Bello” fights corporations for the benefit of the little guy – but her personal life is complicated.

Rebel has multiple ex-husbands and children from each of them who are all entangled in her work life. It’s a lot to unpack, particularly in the overstuffed premiere.

Written by “Grey’s Anatomy” veteran Krista Vernoff, “Rebel” is an OK broadcast network soap thanks to snappy dialogue and dramatic scenes that should earn the show the nickname “10 Ways to Get Disbarred.”

Rebel is not a lawyer but she works with lawyers, including one played by Andy Garcia. Rebel threatens people on behalf of legal cases in ways that most judges would frown upon. But for viewers who tune in for the over-the-top stories on “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Rebel” feels of a piece with that long-running ABC soap.

Channel surfing

WTAE-TV’s latest edition of “Chronicle” (10 p.m. Monday), “On the Unemployment Line,” explores the impact of the pandemic on employment in Western Pennsylvania and the challenges it brought to the commonwealth’s aging unemployment system. …

1989 Springdale High School grad John Siciliano guest stars in the April 8 episode of NBC’s “Law Order: SVU” (9 p.m. Thursday, WPXI-TV). … Fox canceled animated comedy “Bless the Harts” after two seasons but renewed “Duncanville” for a third. … The Daytime Emmy Awards return to CBS at 8 p.m. June 25.