I know I’m 24 hours late on my Wednesday Storage Wars post but I didn’t get a chance to watch it last night. The first episode, “Fu Dog Day Afternoon”, was fairly interesting. Dave buying the locker for 35 dollars with the intention of fixing up the tables was pretty crafty. Notice how quick he is to re-furbish old furniture to bring its true value. The Fu-Dog or whatever it was is just the luck aspect. Barry got caught in a bidding war against Dave and got stuck with a pretty crappy unit. I usually don’t mind Dave but the way he called Barry a sucker was really uncalled for and makes him look like a dick everyone thinks he is. Barry found some lawn mowers, a washer and an old 1950’s TV worth nothing that he paid some guy a thousand bucks(a guess) to turn it into a collectible and help him save face. I think Darrell did a great job bidding against Dave on a unit that had potential. Jarrod is just a step below these two guys on the bidding scale and it showed on this particular locker. Darrell’s good sense paid off when he found some mint condition vinyl player that was worth 1,500 bucks with the speakers. After hearing how enthusiastic the stereo guru was to listen to a vinyl on a mint condition player, I feel like going out and buying some top notch equipment to listen to music the right way. I thought the funniest thing was when Darrell was giving his trade secret of looking at the newspaper to see when the stuff is dated. The unit had a newspaper from 91′ and he was like “that was 20 years ago” and I thought to myself “holy shit, he’s right.” I thought the episode was decent but nothing spectacular, the unlocked section was filled with more tidbits.

I find a few things fascinating about the unlocked episode, mainly what Darrell has on Dave. On one episode Darrell’s son Brandon wore a hat that said “”Newport Consignment Gallery”. The thing was he blacked out some letters for it to say “new con” or something like that and Dave was getting really pissed. I feel like there is something from Dave’s past that Darrell knows and hints at but doesn’t bring it up publicly on the show. It happened again on the unlocked episode when they were talking about dead bodies in Storage Units and Darrell said something about disposing of a dead body and made a remark to Dave. Dave just got real quiet and seemed annoyed. It just is something I picked up on but it might be nothing. I thought the asset discussion with Darrell was neat because Dave asked how many of them have sold 1.7 million dollars worth of goods from lockers. Obviously none of them have and they lack the professionalism Dave has and I think they sort of resent that. I don’t know how much Dave nets like Darrell was asking but anyone who puts 1.7 million dollars of revenue searching out Storage Lockers is taking it pretty serious. I think Jarrod envy’s that to a degree because he’ll eventually want to become what Dave is. To some degree I like hearing about Jarrod’s trials and tribulations because he seems more real to a person who would be trying to break into that industry. That’s why Barry is the weirdest character on the show because he doesn’t want to sell goods. He has plenty of money and just buys units to hopefully find weird collectables. The other characters are all about the money. It sort of makes Barry look like a fool when he gets bid up on a locker because he thinks he sees something in the background and he just paid 1,000 bucks for items he doesn’t want. The Phil Hellmuth aspect of the show was sort of lame. They weren’t asking the right questions with Phil and I’m not sure how much of a fan he is of the show but I feel like he could have provided some good insight if they let him go off on his own. Overall though I like the sit downs from time to time, I just would like to see it be a little more or a therapy session. Why does Jarrod hate Dave and why does Dave have the need to punish the competition? Where is the thrill for Barry to bid on units when he doesn’t need the money? I would ask the producer, is Dave a necessity to the show?

This was the conclusion of the first season and I haven’t been hooked by a show in a long time on network TV. I’ve commented before on the realness of the show and why I like it so much. Dissecting the characters is also a favorite because you get to learn their backgrounds and get some insight on why they make certain decisions. Jarrod might not have enough money for this particular unit and can’t afford to bid properly. Things like that. I think that the show will make the characters too big for A&E to have a season as successful as the first. The characters will start making more money because of the show when compared to the selling of goods. They will become bigger than the show. The bidding won’t be real because they will have too much money. I sort of felt that watching the last episode when it seemed like the characters were singled out on certain lockers and they were just bidding against each other while everyone stood and watched them. Once the concept of money gets tossed out, the show will lose it’s integrity. Still though, I had a great time watching this show and really learned a lot. How to price things, what to look for, what may be valuable. A very worthwhile hour of my time each Wednesday night.