What’s this show called … Dirty Jobs?

If your name is Bob Degon, you can stop reading now. There’s nothing to see here.

Okay … now that we’re alone, this week I checked out the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs. You know, the one where host Mike Rowe does all sorts of weird, dirty, and/or disgusting jobs alongside regular folk. Right from the start the former QVC host came across as the kind of guy I thought I’d enjoy watching. He seems intelligent, but also witty and comedic at the same time. I figured he’d put a great spin on it all.

Job one came after a dip into the fan mail bag. Not sure if that’s a staple of the series, but if those letters are real they’re rather funny — actually, regardless they’re funny. Anyway, the first job took Mike to a gun range; task one seemed more like play than anything else, with Rowe messing around on the firing range before heading out to help subdue a deer. While I enjoyed much of the commentary on the range, once Rowe and company got out to the woods and got stuck in the mud, he kind of seemed like a real jerk. I’m sure there’s part persona and part personality all mixed in there, but at the same time he’s a guest of these people, there to help them with their work … a little respect?

Next came pollinating flowers on a date ranch. I was wondering why the task would be considered a “dirty” job, but I quickly forgot my wonderings when Rowe started on his date double entendres. Some were eye-roll worthy and some were downright dirty, but all were not received well by me. To think that it was the longest segment, so we had to endure so much of it … the transference of seed is what allows one generation to flow into the next, and that’s been true since the beginning of time. It might be boring, but did it really need to be reduced to weak sex jokes while Rowe pollinated the female date trees?

The last segment was preceded by another letter, with a fan asking if Rowe ever gets frustrated by his mediocrity and inability to do so many tasks (zing!). Rowe’s biggest frustration apparently came from an experience he had cutting granite — or more specifically, putting on his apron and separating a stack of buckets, two tasks that he struggled with throughout the entire segment. Now that was funny, and I enjoyed Rowe a lot more here than I had on the previous two jobs. We’ve all been there with a stack of plastic things that just won’t come apart.

On this one I’ll be the first to suggest that I may have caught a bad episode. I think it’s probably better or worse depending on the job, because Mike Rowe is a part of it no matter what. Unfortunately I’d only return to a show based on my prior experience with it, which in this case wasn’t altogether positive. I’ve got to give the episode a thumbs down, but I can see giving the series a closed fist — neither up nor down. If I’d seen a better episode, maybe I could imagine checking it out again.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jan 03, 2011 @ 12:00 EST5EDT