Mike Rowe is back with more dirty, disgusting and highly educational work that takes him to the smelliest, dirtiest and most interesting jobs I have ever seen.
Film making 25/25
Video 24/25
Audio 24/25
Bonus Features 0/25
Total 73/100
Dirty Jobs is six years old or there about and Mike Rowe has been filming some of the dirtiest and sometimes most disgusting jobs I have ever seen and enjoyed every minute of it. Dirty Jobs takes Mike Rowe and camera crew around the country and world looking for dirty jobs, the kinds of things people do that keeps our society working.
As Mike puts it “I explore the country looking for people who aren’t afraid to get dirty.” He looks for and becomes the apprentice in jobs that people do to make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Take one episode for an example of not only the disgusting but totally educational content that Dirty Jobs is famous for, Custom Meat Processor. Mike goes to work with a meat processor that goes to local farms and starts the butcher process of animals then continues cutting up the meat at their butcher shop.
Mike learns the interesting work involved with humanely killing and carving up a cow for a customer that starts with Mike actually killing the cow, but not on screen. Mike then takes the knife and saw throughout the whole process of getting a full animal down to steaks, hamburger and roasts both at the farm and butcher shop.
While this may be a bit disgusting to view I have to agree with a friend of ours that everyone should know where our food comes from and how it is processed. I think seeing and knowing how our beef and pork, chicken and turkey, fish and other seafood is all caught, processed and brought from farm, field and sea to our table is an important education.
This is not a look at the gross or disgusting but a process of our agriculture and our society, if you eat meat this is something you should be educated about. It’s like this for all of Dirty Jobs, educational and entertaining looks at jobs that are both a mainstay of our society or important parts of business.
Corn miller, animal relocator, bug detective and asphalt paver are just a few that Mike takes a look at and gets his hands dirty learning about. Have you ever wondered how tough a job it is to pave a road, the actual knowledge and constant attention it takes to make that road straight and pitched for rain to run off?
Watch Mike chase a baby camel to get some exercise, for the camel not Mike, or see Mike as he catches, records and does other things with sea lamprey’s to keep breeding in the wild under control. Mike takes a close look at all the jobs that are both an important part of our society and ones that while not important are something that we often take for granted.
Dirty Jobs is a fantastic show and should be used in schools for kids to learn more about our world and the people making our society function. Mike is also an advocate for trade jobs and advocates more public awareness of the plight of skilled labor that needs more attention.
Mike has helped to create his own website Mike Rowe Works and other sites to bring the message that our country needs skilled labor to work in jobs like construction. Many jobs are out there for Americans but the problem is that people think of them as dirty jobs at low pay.
Mike sees this often on location to film his show with jobs that need more people who help our society run and along with the people who are happy doing these types of jobs. Mike truly appreciates the people he meets and the jobs they do, so much that he has taken his message to Congress and the Senate Commerce Committee.
Mike has explained in his usual eloquent voice that America needs more skilled laborers and the public needs to find out how to train for these jobs. He wants a public relations campaign to help people find jobs that will help to rebuild our economy.
Not bad for a guy who simply tries his best at the jobs he finds himself at that are often not just dirty but down right filthy. Dirty Jobs is a fantastic show and continues to be a highly recommended show from me and others who enjoy seeing Mike get dirty while educating us.
Dirty Jobs Season 5 contains four discs with 19 episodes of Dirty Jobs but just a word of warning about the episodes you have in this set. The Season 5 Dirty Jobs set on sale at the Discovery store was actually the seventh season of filming for the show.
They have only released 5 seasons of episodes on disc and the Season 5 set was aired from October 2009 to March of 2011. You do not get all the episodes that aired on the Discovery channel during that time, none of the revisits or specials unfortunately.
The DVD set also does not include any bonus content at all on any of the four discs which is a pity but quality for video and audio is pretty good. Of course, when you have Mike grabbing a small handheld camcorder and running from a group of bloodhounds to see how they work video quality is also dicey.
Video quality is a bit of a mixed bag when you have the crew with excellent quality HD cameras working alongside small handheld camcorders so they get not only every shot but the really odd angles. Audio is also a mixed bag with sometimes hard to hear voice but when things get really loud they do onscreen subtitles.
As you would expect from a reality show that is filmed in some of the oddest locations audio and video quality is for the most part good to great but always enjoyable. Dirty Jobs continues to be a great show and even when things get visually disgusting or gross sounding you do get a good view and hear all those sloshy gurgling’s.
I cannot recommend Dirty Job’s enough and season 5 has Mike Rowe scrambling to get all those wonderful moments on film, Mike Rowe dirty boots Jelly Belly Jelly Beans anyone?