Deadliest Catch season 22 has set its premiere date: Friday, May 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Discovery Channel.
Sadly, it will be a season remembered for a tragedy. Todd Meadows, a 25-year-old deckhand on the Aleutian Lady, died as a result of an accident during production.
Last month, Meadows’ bunkmate Trey John Green III told Page Six the Bering Sea was “calm” in the late afternoon of Feb. 20, but added the water was “only a degree or two above freezing.” The ship’s crew members were taking turns climbing into the boats to sift through crabs they’d just caught. Green said Meadows was in a pot, which was seated in the ship’s launcher, when it fell “over the rail” and into the chilly water.
“It’s one of those things that none of us really understand,” Green, 30, said. “I don’t know what happened.”
Meadows was “doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing,” Green added. “We’re like, ‘Holy crap, he’s gonna sink to the bottom. We’re not gonna have any way to get this pot back up.’”
But Green says he saw Meadows escape the pot and attempt to swim. He was not wearing a life vest — none of the crew were. Meadows was in the water just “three or four minutes” before the boat’s designated swimmer retrieved him from the sea. He was already “lifeless,” Green said.
The crew attempted CPR and used a defibrillator, but the efforts failed. They wrapped Meadows’ body in a tarp and “place[d] it in the freezer to preserve it and head[ed] back to town,” the publication wrote.
“Everybody did everything they could do,” Green said, adding that “everything” was captured by the production’s cameras.
Meadows’ accident was indeed filmed, but it will not be shown on TV, a person with knowledge of production says. The season 22 premiere will include a tribute to Meadows, and subsequent episodes will include footage of Todd as filmed in the weeks documented prior to his death.
Deadliest Catch is produced by Original Productions, a Fremantle company.
The Deadliest Catch airs on the Discovery Channel.
Discovery via Everett Collection
Below is the official season 22 synopsis, courtesy of Discovery. Not that any of this stuff really matters in the long run.
With a new king crab population appearing far north, the fleet relocates 225 miles to St. George Island, facing colder weather and more extreme seas than any season before as they work to sustain their livelihoods in rapidly changing waters.
For the first time in decades, the captains abandon familiar fishing grounds to chase a rare breed of Red King Crab lurking in the frozen waters of the far North. This elusive catch, worth a fortune, pushes the fleet into remote territory and tests their experience and resilience at the edge of the world.
In a series first, Captain Sig Hansen launches an unprecedented covert scouting mission, deploying an underwater drone into the unknown waters in a bold attempt to locate the rare strain of king crab before the rest of the fleet arrives. Captain Wild Bill Wichrowski journeys to St. George Island to share his decades of hard-earned knowledge, guiding Sig through new grounds in pursuit of the bigger, richer crab that could define his season.
Meanwhile, after losing both his boat and his marriage, Captain Jake Anderson starts the season as a deckhand for the first time in eleven years. When an unexpected opportunity emerges to restore the legendary Cornelia Marie, Jake steps back into the captain’s chair, putting his reputation and his family’s future on the line for one final shot at redemption.
