Why Is This So Interesting?: A review of A&E's Storage Wars

Tweet recently I stumbled on to this show when flipping through channels one boring night.  At first I thought: "better than nothing ".  However, after 3 episodes I was hooked!  Here are my thoughts on the show.

The premise of 'Storage Wars' is very simple.  Companies that rent out storage lockers hire an auctioneer (Dan) to sell units that have been abandoned.  Once the units are bought, we see if the locker was worth the money or not.  Right off the bat I am going to say that this simple concept works really well.  There are no complicated rules, or a set competition (from what I have seen so far), and the focus is on only 4 buyers; Dave Hester, Darrel Sheets, Barry Weiss, and Jarrod Schulz.  Dave is the owner of a large thrift store and always carries 10K on him for auctions, Jarrod and his wife own a much smaller thrift store and are often outbid due to their lower finances, Darrell seems to make a living off finding other people's expensive stuff, and Barry only looks for collectible items.  Now that you have the general idea of the show let's get to the fun stuff.

Our buyers converge on a facility that is holding an auction, and Dan leads them from locker to locker.  When somebody sees a unit they like, they join the bidding process.  At this point Dan speaks so fast that I can only catch about 30% of what he is actually saying.  He raises the pacing of the show during these rapid fire auctions, it really makes the auctions feel more exciting.  The show focuses on auctions where the buyers we are following are actively competing against one another, the most interesting of these is when Dave and Darrell both want the same unit.  They go back and forth (in bids and in insults) until one of them relents; the dynamic between them is incredible, they genuinely do not like each other.  Often their battles end with the loser saying something to the tune of "at least I made him over-pay for it" or, more commonly "I hate that guy, I just wanted to beat him".  Following the auctions, the second phase begins: seeing what the hell these people bought.  Now, whether some of the show is set up or not, I do not know.  What I do know is that it is very fun watching a buyer find something very valuable among a pile of crap.  Without giving too much away, I will focus on one example.  Jarrod spent $500 on a locker because he "had a hunch" about some jeans (yes...jeans).  As it turns out, the pairs of jeans he found were apparently rare, and desired; so he got back well more than the $500 he initially put in to them.  The show is full of these successes and failures, and has so far not disappointed.

The only gripes I have with the show is that one: the buyers do not find out how well their competitors did.  I think that seeing these guys rub it in to their opponent when they've outbid them and found valuables in the locker would provide for some excellent television.  Two: the slightly repetitive episode structure.  There is always a hidden treasure in the worst of lockers, this is a small gripe because they probably go through tons of lockers per day, and A&E only shows us the best of the best.  These gripes do little to deter me from watching (or caring enough to write a review). It is much more entertaining to watch with a group of friends, just for the conversation you will have amongst yourselves.  If you are not watching this show, I suggest you give it a shot, odds are you will like it.  If you do watch the show, hopefully you will keep watching to keep it on the air.

Overall rating for the show: 7.5/10

Ratings structure:
0: quickly change the channel
1-3: if NOTHING else is on
4-7: entertaining or interesting enough to put the remote down
7-9: I plan to watch regularly and look into when its on.
9+:The cream of the television crop (The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Simpsons,etc)


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