In another History Channel show with only the mildest connection to actual history, Swamp People is a reality series about the gator-catchers in Louisiana swamp country. Sure, these people are Cajuns, and we're told by the accented narrator that gator-catching is a great Louisiana tradition passed on from their cultural ancestors. Each episode opens with a viewer discretion warning (for Gruesome Gator Gore) that also states that the practice you're about to see is 300 years old, justifying its status as a historical show, even though you could theoretically say the same thing about farming—and you don't see the History Channel lining up to do a gritty series on the ins-and-outs of feeding chickens.
But I digress. We all know that the History Channel is not just about historical shows anymore, so let's not keep beating a decomposed horse. To its credit, Swamp People maintains a higher ground compared to its niche-profession-reality-show brethrens by adopting a narrative tone that is more educational than slice-of-life, minimizing its interest in the cast's interpersonal drama. When they say that it's a show about catching gators, they mean it.
Thankfully, Swamp People doesn't follow its subjects indefinitely to ensure endless streams of material. It is currently on its second season on the History Channel, and in a neat bit of television scheduling, a season of the show is a season for the swamp people too. Gator season lasts only 30 days a year (that’s 10 episodes for us), in which these guys risk everything to make most of their annual income in one month. So there's a considerable pressure there that doesn't need to be manufactured, with a clear beginning and a definite end that it charts towards.
It also means it can get repetitive, especially if you don't find the mundane details of the trade all that fascinating. You can appreciate the amount of skill and effort put into it, sure, but aside from the worries of not catching enough gators in the episodes near the end of the season, the show really comes down to watching a bunch of people make Moby Dicks out of alligators. In the first episode, we see them create makeshift special hooks that would help them finally catch an infamously large and dangerous gator they’ve been after for years, nicknamed Big Head.
Then in the season finale, they wrestle against a large and cannibalistic gator—it eats smaller gators—that has been dubbed The Loch Ness Monster. Which is crazy, because in one of the earlier episodes, another set of gator hunters already encountered a large and cannibalistic gator, which they nicknamed Godzilla. There was also Houdini, a gator that can houdini itself out of gator traps; another one they’ve been trying to catch for years.
I haven't seen any of the second season, but I'm hoping there is an episode where these guys face off against Cthulhu, the gator whose very mention drives swamp people mad.
DVD Bonus Features
Just a reel of deleted scenes that totals up to half an hour long. Guess what they show. If you guessed “gators” or “Cajuns catching gators,” you win some swamp points.
"Swamp People: Season One" is on sale May 31, 2011 and is rated PG. Documentary, Reality.
