Storage Wars

Storage Wars (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Storage Wars is an American reality television series on the A&E Network that premiered in 2010. The show features the auctioneering couple of Dan Dotson and Laura Dotson, as well as buyers Dave Hester, the usually together but occasionally separated team of Darrell and Brandon Sheets, Barry Weiss, and the team of Jarrod Schulz and Brandi Passante. Executive producer and creator Thom Beers serves as off-screen narrator. When rent is not paid on a storage locker for three months in California, the contents are sold by an auctioneer as a single lot of items. The show follows professional buyers who purchase the contents based only on a five-minute inspection of what they can see from the door when it is opened. The goal is to turn a profit on the merchandise. Season one of Storage Wars consisted of 19 episodes, 17 of which were filmed at various self-storage facilities throughout Southern California. Two special episodes were filmed on location at a pair of StorageOne facilities in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show has enjoyed ratings success, and its second season premiere attracted 5.1 million total viewers, making it the most-watched program in A&E's history to that point.

A spin-off of Storage Wars titled Storage Wars: Texas made its debut on A&E on December 6, 2011. The series features a new cast of bidders and an auctioneer. A second spinoff called Storage Wars: New York was originally scheduled to debut on December 11, 2012. but has since been pushed out to January 1, 2013.

Storage Wars can be seen internationally as well, as AETN International has sold the series to several channels in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark.

Storage Wars was recommissioned for another 26-episode season in January 2012, with the season officially premiering on June 5, 2012. Only 20 of the 26 episodes were aired however, with six of the episodes being held back for broadcast during the second half of the show's 3rd season which began airing on December 4, 2012.

Participants

Main buyers

Dave Hester - The Mogul (Season 1-3): At the start of the series, he owned Newport Consignment Gallery in Costa Mesa, California and the Rags to Riches thrift store, but closed them in June 2011. He now operates his own auction house, Dave Hester Auctions. Hester has had confrontations with the other main buyers, especially Darrell and Brandon Sheets, and is known to raise bids whenever somebody wants to buy the unit. Hester's son Dave Jr. occasionally appears on the show with him. Hester's signature catchword is a loud "YUUUP!" making a bid. He has this word imprinted on his trucks, t-shirts, and hats. His net worth stands at $3 million. Recently in December 2012, Dave Hester has been "fired" from the show and is suing the show's producers for wrongful termination.

Darrell Sheets - The Gambler (Season 1-present): Sheets, a storage auction veteran from San Diego, appears alongside his son, Brandon. His catchphrase is "This is the WOW factor!" and he makes the occasional malapropism. He makes his living by selling items from his purchased lockers at swap meets. In the beginning of the series, he lived with his wife, son and young granddaughter, Zoe. He has divorced, and moved (with Brandon) to North Hollywood, where he works out of his new warehouse. In an interview, Sheets indicated that some of his biggest finds in lockers included a sizable comic book collection, four drawings by Pablo Picasso, and a letter written by Abraham Lincoln that sold for over $15,000. In "Unlocked: Sell High", Darrell revealed that he once found a plastic-wrapped human corpse in a storage locker. It was determined that the previous owner of the locker had murdered his wife and left her in the unit. Sheets has a net worth of $1.5 Million.

Jarrod Schulz and Brandi Passante - The Young Guns (Season 1-present): Schulz and Passante own and operate the Now and Then thrift store in Orange, California. They opened the shop after Jarrod's business of buying storage units and selling the contents at swap meets overran their home. Jarrod also is a co-owner of a clothing line, Outlaw Apparel, which he prominently wears on the show. They are the newcomers in the storage unit shopping and financially the poorest. Although they buy only lower-bid lockers, they had some luck in the business. Both Jarrod and Brandi have a combined net worth of $1.5 Million.

Barry Weiss - The Collector (Season 1-present): Weiss and his brother owned a produce company, and they made a fortune, until he retired. While Weiss is a lifelong antiques collector, he had never bought a storage unit until his friend and Storage Wars executive producer and narrator Thom Beers suggested he join the show. Barry is the best financed of the group and by his own admission is the only one not in it for financial profit. He is interested in finding collectibles. He is known for the unusual tactics, such as bringing in psychics to help him figure out a locker's contents, odd disguises and outfits he sometimes wears, attaching a camera to a remote control helicopter to look inside a locker, and most recently bringing in a pair of fake German attorneys to distract the other buyers. Barry's net worth stands at $9 million.

Other featured buyers

Bill Archer (Season 1): Bill Archer had recently left his previous job to become a storage-unit buyer at the time of his first appearance. Archer only appeared full-time in one episode in the first season which was "Young with the Gun". He has been seen in the background since his initial appearance.

Mark Balelo (Season 2-present): Balelo owns a liquidation, wholesale, and distribution company, and an auction house, and also used to own a gaming store called The Game Exchange from 2009-2012. He and is known for bringing large sums of money to auctions, as much as $50,000 at a time. He also earned the name "Rico Suave" for his tendency to dress in clothes. He was known to be a dirty player, overpricing Barry to $1,500 and Dave to almost $10,000, which took place in the episode "Enemy of the Enemy". He is the permanent opponent for the players. Mark's net worth stands at $2 Million. He appeared four times in the second season, in the episodes "Enemy of The Enemy", "Fire in The Hole", "San Burrito" and "Buy Low Sell High", and also appeared once in the third season, in the episode "More Like WRONG Beach".

Nabila Haniss (Season 2-present): Haniss received attention (prior to the series) for purchasing a storage unit that contained items belonging to socialite Paris Hilton. She has an estimated net worth of $10 million. She appeared five times in the second season, in the episodes "Smoke Em If You Find 'Em", "The Drone Wars", "Not Your Average Bear", "Hook, Line and Sucker" and "Operation Hobo" and also appeared once is the third season in the episode "A Tale of Two Jackets".

Jeff Jarred (Season 3-present): Jared is the owner of the It's New To You antique and thrift store that he runs with his daughter in Burbank, California. He first appears in the third season episode, in five episodes total: "All's Fair in Storage and Wars", "The Fast and The Curious", "From Russia With Chucks", and later in the third season in the episodes "The Young & The Reckless" and "Tustin, Bee Have a Problem". His net worth is so far unknown.

Mark Compers (Season 3-present): Compers is a fairly new bidder. From what Dotson says, he is known for finding some big hits at auctions. He has only appeared in one episode in the third season which was "The Young and the Reckless".

Other cast members

Dan and Laura Dotson: The husband and wife auctioneer team run American Auctioneers, and administer the storage auctions. Dan has been a professional auctioneer since 1974. Dan is the primary auctioneer, occasionally giving the reins to Laura. At the end of every auction, Laura reminds the buyers, "Don't forget to pay the lady!". He is also known to have an extreme-leveled fast voice, making it almost impossible to understand what is he saying.

Thom Beers: The executive producer and narrator of the show, Beers provides a quick explanation of the show's premise at the beginning, and does a recap of the featured buyers' profits or losses at the end of each episode. He has stated that the series avoids delving into back stories of the lockers' original owners because, "All you see is misery there, and I didn't want to trade on that."

Critical reception

Critical response was mixed, with Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times calling Storage Wars "a strangely uplifting show — hope being one of the many things one can apparently find in an abandoned storage unit," and Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times called the series "an especially entertaining addition to the genre." Brian Lowry of Variety said that "'Wars' should have been left in storage, indefinitely." Writing for Slate, Troy Patterson gave a mixed review, referring to the series as "trash TV" as well as "trivial and magnetic." Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Daily News suggested "if there's an acquisitive bone in your body, you should probably steer clear."

Ratings

The first season premiere episode drew 2.1 million viewers and the show was A&E's top-rated non-fiction show for 2010, with an average of 2.4 million viewers. The season two premiere consisted of back-to-back new episodes of the show; the second show drew 5.1 million total viewers and was the highest rating for an episode of a series in A&E history. The combined season premiere outperformed competing original episodes of NBC Love in the Wild and ABC's Primetime Nightline.

Concerns about authenticity

While some have speculated that some of the units have been stocked by producers, an A&E publicist said, "There is no staging involved. The items uncovered in the storage units are the actual items featured on the show." Executive producer Thom Beers has stated that the vast majority of the storage lockers investigated during production contain nothing of interest and therefore do not appear in the final show.

Lawsuit

In December 2012, Dave Hester filed a lawsuit against A&E and Original Productions, claiming that the producers staged entire units, planted items in lockers after having them appraised weeks in advance, and funneled cash to weaker teams to buy lockers they could not have otherwise afforded. The suit claims that Hester and other cast members met with network officials to express concerns that those actions were in violation of federal law intended to prevent viewers from being deceived when watching a show involving intellectual skills.

Opening titles

Every episode opens with the narrator, Thom Beers, setting the basic premise for the series: "When storage units are abandoned, the treasures within are put up for auction." In Episodes 2, 3, 4 and 7 of season one, an extra line was added to the opening narration: "because in this high-stakes game, it's get rich or die buyin'." The narration is followed by the preview of the upcoming episode, followed by the opening titles. In the opening titles, the sequence of titles begins at Dave, then Darrell, then Brandi and Jarrod, then Barry, and finally at Dan and Laura. While Laura always appeared in the opening titles, her highlighted face and name were not added to the credits until episode 11 of Season 1. Dave Hester Jr. and Brandon Sheets also appear in the opening titles, but are not highlighted and credited. The show's theme song, "Money Owns This Town", which was written and recorded specifically for the show, plays during the opening.

Episodes

Home releases

Storage Wars: The Complete Season 1
Set details			DVD Layout
19 episodes 3-disc DVD set 1.66:1 non-anamorphic aspect ratio Languages: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)			DISC ONE (7 episodes): "High Noon in the High Desert" - "The Old Spanish Standoff" DISC TWO (7 episodes): "Midnight in the Gardena Good and Evil" - "Trouble the Oil" DISC THREE (5 episodes): "Makings of a Mogul" - "Live and Let Bid"
DVD release dates
Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
August 30, 2011	June 11, 2012

Storage Wars: Volume 2
Set details			DVD Layout
14 episodes 2-disc DVD set 1.66:1 non-anamorphic aspect ratio Languages: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)			DISC 1: "Santa Ana Street Fight" - "Fire in the Hole" DISC 2: "San Burrito" - "FU Dog Day Afternoon"
DVD release dates
Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
February 14, 2012

Storage Wars: Volume 3
Set details			DVD Layout
16 episodes 2-disc DVD set 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)			DISC 1: "I'm The New Mogul" - "Scoot A Toot Toot" DISC 2: "The Empire Strikes Out" - "Operation Hobo"
DVD release dates
Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
July 17, 2012