I had been catching this show, one of many, many reality shows where they follow people around at work. There are shows about fishermen, lumberjacks, pawn shop owners, restoration people, etc. This show, Storage Wars, on A&E, is about people who bid on abandoned storage lockers. They have four people they follow around as they try to figure out how much an opened locker is worth (they can’t go in, so they usually can’t see everything in the locker), then bid against each other, then go through everything. If they find something interesting (“interesting” = “expensive”) then they take it to someone they know who can give them some background and appraise it. So it is kind of like Let’s Make a Deal where you are bidding on a mystery box. And kind of like a treasure hunt because you never know what you’ll find. And kind of like Antiques Roadshow as you find out what something is worth from an expert.
It is A&E’s top show. The debut of Season 2 was the biggest audience that A&E has ever had. So it has done really well. Tonight was the premiere of Season 3 which they have been promoting by showing all of the old episodes. So I’ve been recording them over the past few weeks and watching them like crazy.
As I’ve been watching I’ve been getting to know the different bidders. There is Dave, the villain, who likes to run up bids on the others so they have to pay more, or just be a jerk in general. And so the others all hate him, sometimes to a silly extent. At the end of the show they total up what the locker is worth and whether that is more than what they paid. Dave always assigns exaggerated values to his stuff, like “Those are blank cassette tapes, so those are worth $5 each, and there are 20 of them so that’s $100.” Apparently he tried to hold out for extra money this season, but he was on the show tonight so I guess they were able to work it out.
There is a guy who always wears a tank top and doesn’t seem so bright, named Darryl. He can’t stand Dave. He uses more realistic values when appraising his stuff, but if something is good, might say “There’s a flat screen TV, that’s a $300 bill.” Like there is such a thing as a $300 bill. He knows a lot about all of the stuff he finds though.
There is an old guy named Barry who at first I just felt sorry for because he is always losing money, but actually he’s one of the highlights of the show. He gets along with everybody and has a ton of money so he doesn’t care if he loses money. I read an article that said they make about $10,000 for each show, so he is coming out ahead even when he loses on the lockers. He has a fantastic fleet of cars and they always show him driving up in something interesting (most of the others drive trucks; Barry might drive up in a Jaguar or a very cool old low rider Cadillac coupe).
The last is a married couple who struggle keeping a used goods store, so they are buying stuff to sell in their store. They are a good contrast to each other and the rest of the people on the show.
Anyway, glad to see new episodes tonight.