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There鈥檚 plenty to pick through on TV this weekend.
Literally, since both History鈥檚 American Pickers and A&E鈥檚 Storage Wars are heading into marathon mode. Today, buddies Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz pilfer their way through the U.S. Midwest for eight hours, while the Dotsons auction off lockers on Storage Wars for seven hours on Sunday.
That鈥檚 a lot of junk to go through.
But apparently, junk is the new black (or whatever). If the various spinoffs of Pickers (yes, we have one in sa国际传媒) and Wars (Texas has a version and so will New York, come early 2013) are any indication, it鈥檚 that we can鈥檛 get enough of rooting through other people鈥檚 stuff. And unlike their messier cousins, Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive, Pickers and Wars find good uses for otherwise useless items.
But while both shows are clearly living a nostalgic American dream 鈥� digging up buried treasure and selling it for fast, easy bucks 鈥� their approaches are quite different. Pickers is a simple slice of Americana that just happened to hit it big for the ol鈥� cable network. Wolfe, Fritz and office manager Danielle Colby-Cushman are a fun-loving, humble team who delve deep into the history of the antiques they come across on their travels. Wolfe and Fritz鈥檚 friendship stretches back almost as far as their mutual love of picking.
Wars takes the more sensationalist approach of auctioning off the storage lockers of owners who haven鈥檛 paid the rent 鈥� including some of California鈥檚 elite (and perhaps in the future, Lindsay Lohan, if she doesn鈥檛 get around to footing that bill). Equally splashy are its characters, including moneybags Dave Hester, father-son duo Darrell and Brandon Sheets, gloved Jack Nicholson doppelganger Barry Weiss and bickering married couple Jarrod Schulz and Brandi Passante.
If it sounds like a cast made in Hollywood, well, it just might be, according to Hester. The bidder has recently piped up about the series, saying 鈥測uuup,鈥� it is indeed fake. He has filed a lawsuit claiming producers staged entire units, planted previously appraised items in lockers and gave money to teams so they could buy lockers they could not have afforded. It also claims Hester and other cast members have voiced their concerns to network bosses about misrepresentation in the past.
Whatever comes out of that ordeal, Storage Wars will likely enjoy success until it naturally runs its course, as will American Pickers 鈥� as long as both continue fascinating viewers (these shows garner viewership well into the millions per episode) with how much money can be made from another person鈥檚 trash. Because really, that鈥檚 what it comes down to: junk.
American Pickers, 10 a.m. Saturday, History
Storage Wars, 1 p.m. Sunday, A&E
There鈥檚 at least one more discarded item up for grabs today, and that鈥檚 the short-lived Fox drama The Mob Doctor. After the already mediocre ratings for the self-explanatory series (Jordana Spiro plays surgical resident Grace Devlin who, yes, works for the Mob) plummeted, Fox is burning off its final four episodes starting with today鈥檚 broadcast of Confessions, in which Dr. Devlin tends to a runaway and a priest whose face was bitten during an exorcism. The remaining three episodes air Dec. 31, Jan. 5 and Jan. 7.
9 p.m., Fox
