The Sun Always Shines on T.V.: Storage War$

I really don’t like reality tv. I mean the first 2 season of The Real World were good and a couple of other reality shows were ok, but for the most part it’s a bunch of wanna-be’s trying to whore themselves out for fame. On top of that, you don’t know if the show is really “real” or if it is scripted and filmed, I’m looking at you The Hills.

Well all of this leads me to my favorite new show, Storage War$. Basically, the show follows around 4 different guys who go to storage businesses and bid on storage lockers that haven’t been paid, so they are put up for auction. Probably the most famous story of these kinds of storage units is when Paris Hilton’s “movies” were found in a unit that she stopped paying on and were put online.

The show is really suspenseful to watch. They have a few minutes to look into the unit from the outside; they can’t go in or move items around. And then comes the bidding. I love this part, especially the interaction between the regulars. Dave is the pro and has a store where he sells all the stuff he finds. Jarod and his wife/girlfriend are the newbies. They make mistakes and usually end up getting nothing because the price goes too high. Darrell is one of my favorites because he is pretty impulsive and is willing to take chances. The last guy they follow is Barry. He is different from the rest because he is looking for collectibles in the lockers; he isn’t looking to resell the whole thing. Barry usually ends up losing money because he is constantly looking for that “homerun find”, unlike the others who are trying to make profit on each buy

After the bidding, they go in and look at what they got. Some lockers are full of great items, like memorabilia or antiques. Others are full of clothes and trash. It is interesting to see what people put into storage units. Dave purchased a locker for $200 and it had newspapers from the day of Elvis’ death and were worth at least $10 each and he had about 6,000 copies. He could make over $60,000 on that locker. Darrel got a crap locker for $175, but found a medical tool used in the early 1800’s that caused bleeding, it was valued over $400.

There is another show called Auction Hunters which follows a team and it is basically the same show except they go into more detail of selling the items after they get the lockers. I have seen 2 episodes and while it is good, the lack of other “cast members” hurts because there is no interaction between other bidders.