'BlackGold': The feedback begins to surface

Reviews are beginning to come in on the new miniseries BlackGold, the show about a lot of people in West Texas.

This from a friend who makes a decent wage in the oil bidness:

Watched the first two episodes this week and here’s my critique.  First off, I have never worked on a rig and have no intention to do so.  However, having worked for three companies that had a drilling subsidiary, I have some insight.

Overall, the mechanical and personality aspects of the crews were accurate.  It’s a dirty, stinkin’ job but somebody has to do it and to do it you have to have a mentality and physicality to do it.  The language was right on.  Following the one crew to the bar was probably pretty accurate as it’s not uncommon to have a tour show up drunk and hung over.  That’s how accidents happen and people get killed.  Drugs were also a problem in the past and I’m not sure anymore if they screen as diligently as they used to when things weren’t so busy.  FYI those are usually 12-hour shifts they run with two or three workers overlapping.  Or at least they used to.  They may not now with the help situation.  The driller that got run off probably walked across the field to the nearest rig and got a job.

As to the company side of it. The storyline of racing the other two rigs is pretty BS.  They make it sound like the first one to 10,000 feet finds a big lake of oil and they just stick their straw in and deplete it. Those wells being drilled are probably on 160 acre spacing, with room for two wells or more.  The oil is in the pores of the rock and it takes a massive fracture stimulation to break apart the formation.  You just don’t put a sponge in their and soak it up.  As for the Viking rig with this being its virgin outing, that happens more often than not with problems on a first run.  Sort of like a new car, you gotta get the rattles tightened down.  Even refurbished rigs 20 years old that get new draw works or a derrick, there’s going to be problems.

And one thing they sort of passed over was the safety aspect.  The companies that contract the drilling services are, or were, pretty hamstrung as to having a safe environment as required by their carriers.  When someone gets hurt, for example, on a Big Dog rig, the rig owner gets sued, the oil company gets sued, the contracting company gets sued, the pipe supplier gets sued, the mud company gets sued, etc. etc.  Therefore the only shield a company can have is a good safety program in place.  Of course, focusing on that aspect takes away the rough and tumble atmosphere.

I’ll watch again.  Its very interesting to try to view it as if you’re on the outside.  Its much better quality than that train wreck CBS7 did last year, although the voice over and video was very similar.

And Jeff at Archeaotexture had a few thoughts on the premiere of BlackGold as well.

Next run date, Episode 2: Wednesday, June 25, at 9 p.m. on TruTV. It does not appear that TNT will rebroadcast the next episode, according to its online schedule of programming.

 

Comments

[Jeff]

Jimmy, thanks for the link.

[Jimmy]

Eric ... yeah, he did look a might uncomfortable. Thanks for theinfo on iTunes. I wondered if they were going to put it up.

Jeff ... you betcha.