3 Captains leave TV show "Deadliest Catch"

[tugboat]

Capts. Johnathan and Andy Hillstrand -- who were sued earlier this month by Discovery for allegedly not performing work on a planned spinoff special -- as well as Capt. Sig Hansen, said in a statement Tuesday that they were "unable" to continue on the series due to the litigation.

The network sued the Hillstrands for $3 million claiming they failed to show up to finish work on "Hillstranded," a planned "Catch" spinoff. The Hillstrands' lawyer Jeff Cohen then called the suit an attempt to "extort" his clients and said the lawsuit could force them to sell their boats and fire their crews. Hansen, also repped by Cohen, later weighed in, backing the Hillstrands, slamming Discovery and saying, "I want people to know the captains stand together, and me and my brothers support them 100 percent."

My crew was suggesting to me that we fill in the time slot with our own show called “The not so Deadliest and often Boring Tug Boat Job” When I told them the climax of the show would be them beating on my door yelling “Captain! We’ve lost our TV reception!” They decided to pursue other endeavors’. I did have a crew member taken off the barge I tow around while down in the Gulf working the oil spill. Not enough excitement for a TV show though.

[mbrody]

Sweet pics! Being a Capt. of that boat makes my desk job seem like a boring POS in comparison!

[maximus]

Deadliest Catch is a pretty cool show...

[Bartolomeo]

Deadliest Catch is a pretty cool show...

Yep

Also check out the Swordfish show as well, pretty cool too

Bart

[CanuckSARTech]

Discovery seems to be suing many of it's stars lately - they seem to be milking things too much with their various hit shows, and the participants just seem to be having enough of it. It will be interesting to see the outcome of things, and to be able to know more info, more of what both sides' individual stories are about this.