America's Toughest Jobs, Episode 1: It's Crab-tastic!

Welcome to America's Toughest Jobs, a new competitive reality series brought to you by the creative mind behind Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers. Each week, our little group of masochists will attempt to perform one of a number of extremely difficult jobs. Each job's annual salary is thrown into a pot that the winner takes home at the season finale. The individual judged to have done most poorly at each task is sent home. It's kind of like Survivor – if the challenges were backbreaking, real-world, frequently blue-collar occupations instead of running around obstacle courses and holding onto poles for hours.

The little sneak preview at what's in store this season shows us shots of monster trucks, oil shooting into the air (and the kinfolk said, "Jed, move away from there!"), bullfighting, and a number of injuries. Tempers flare, the contestants end up learning something about themselves, and one participant (Eric) tells us this isn't a game show, it's life or death. Considering "snuff TV" isn't a viable genre, I'd say it's a game show, yes. Not saying it isn't dangerous, but that's what it is.

We're introduced to the action with a beautiful shot of Dutch Harbor on the Bering Sea in Alaska, with snow-capped mountains in the background. Our contestants' first job is crab fishing – and considering the producer created Deadliest Catch, which is about the same subject, that's not surprising.

In walk our 13 survivors – er, wait, apprentices? Idols? These guys need a name – I'm going to go with jobsters. Everyone cool with that? Any better ideas, feel free to e-mail me. Anyway, they arrive with little fanfare, as this show just kind of gets right down to business (appropriately enough). They'll spend two "bone-chilling, sleep-deprived, and perilous" days on two different fishing boats as junior deckhands or "greenhorns."

Six will be on the boat, the Tempo Sea, under the leadership of captain "Kiwi" John Hansen; the other seven aboard the Fierce Allegiance with captain Tony LaRussa. Wait, he's a baseball manager; they're going to play for the St. Louis Cardinals?! Never mind, different guy.

We're told that crab fishing is the deadliest job on earth. That may be true, but I'll still stack fighting in the U.S. military overseas against any of these jobs any day. Since 1990, over 80 people have died on these waters, apparently doing this job, and the ones that survive endure sub-freezing temperatures, 30-foot-high waves, and blade-like winds. Think about that the next time you're eating crab – not to be too sappy, but it kind of makes you appreciate what's on your plate more, I think.

Chris, a.k.a. "Bada-bing," an investment banker from Queens, New York, tells us that being out on one of these boats is a man's job. "This is not a woman's world," he says. Place your bets now: Who says he gets eliminated this episode and loses to a female? Ah, love that reality show irony.

As if on cue, one of the professional crab fishers tells us Michaela, a Boston-area recruiter, is doing her job (pulling a line, or a thick rope) much more efficiently than is Chris. See? Irony is already in motion. Michaela tells us she's excited and nervous, and her enthusiasm is plain to see.

Oh, yeah, and we get plenty of clips of the fishermen telling us these greenhorns have no idea what they're in for. I'd say that's a pretty safe bet too.

The jobsters will be baiting and launching 30 large steel traps called "pots" into the icy waters. The pots are 800 lbs. each, by the way. Once the crabs are caught, they pull the pots back up and sort the crabs by legal type and size. After the two days are up, the worst two contestants from each boat will have to go back out and prove themselves again. Following that, somebody will be sent home.

Our host, Josh Temple, makes his first appearance, coming off as a sort of cross between early Jeff Probst and Joe Rogan – he wants to be a tough guy, and he seems like he takes his hosting job a little too seriously. He reintroduces us to the concept of the show – which we've already been told about. Do we really need him? The narrator is doing just fine, thank you.

The jobsters get into their fishing gear – one boat has red hooded rain jackets, the other boat wears yellow – and are told to perform a "sacred maritime ritual" before they start: biting the head off of a fish and asking for good fortune from the "crab gods." Is this really something these guys do, or are they just hazing the newbies? Rie, a model from Portland, Oregon, tells us she's Asian but she doesn't eat sushi. Which has nothing to do with this since sushi is rice – raw fish is actually called sashimi. But whatever. Nobody likes a know-it-all.

Everyone's getting into the Ozzy Osbourne head-biting mode when Amy, a Wall Street exec from Boston, says she's allergic to fish and will die if she eats the fish. The fisherman tells her all she has to do is bite off the head, and Sandy, a Texas schoolteacher, tells us that if Amy doesn't have the "balls" to do this, she can't handle any of this. Um, it's not about "balls" honey; she's allergic. As far as excuses go, that's a good one. One of the other guys bites the head off the fish on Amy's behalf. Looks like it's Eric, a California sculptor.

We're shown the bait chopper (yummy – I'm glad this is only available in HD and not Smell-O-Vision). Amy says she likes a "nasty, tough challenge" and that this is living life – "Going to a Ritz-Carlton spa is not living life." Going to have to disagree there, Amy – that's quite a nice life, if you ask me. However, Amy is unable to stand up while doing her tasks. Not a great start for this challenge-seeker.