Off Limits (TV series)
| Off Limits | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Documentary |
| Written by | Avgail Schotz Jill Michelle Williams |
| Starring | Don Wildman |
| Composer | Wild Woods (music) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 30 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Lauren Lexton Tom Rogan |
| Cinematography | Mark LaFleur, Christian Ortega |
| Editors | M.J. Loheed, Drew Nichols |
| Camera setup | Multiple-camera |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company | Endemol Company |
| Original release | |
| Network | Travel Channel |
| Release | May 16, 2011 – June 11, 2013 |
Off Limits is an American
television series that premiered on May 16, 2011, on the Travel Channel. The series features "untold stories and secrets" of America's most iconic cities as host Don Wildman ventures and sometimes trespasses through unexplored areas where not many people have dared to go before. First season episodes aired every Monday at 9 PM EST
.
The second season premiered on Tuesday April 17, 2012 at 10 PM EST. For the remainder of the season, one episode aired on a Thursday at 8 PM EST while the last few episodes were burned off on Sundays at 9 AM EST.
The third season premiered on Tuesday June 4, 2013 at 10 PM EST.
Synopsis
Adventure seeker and series host Don Wildman travels across America ignoring the warning signs to
urban spelunkers
, are like embarking on a journey to rediscover a city's past by uncovering its secret history.
In the introduction, Wildman states:
In every city, every town are places sealed off from the rest of the world hiding their amazing stories behind locked doors inside barbwire where they say you cannot go. I'm Don Wildman, and these are the places I live to explore. The ones they tell you are... Off Limits.
Season 2 introduction, Wildman says:
Warning: Going off limits can be hazardous to your health. Whether it's flying the Goodyear Blimp or pulling an all-nighter in New York. It's accelerated; it's excavated...it's Off Limits.
Episodes
Season 1 (2011)
| No. | Title | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Los Angeles" | May 16, 2011 | |
|
In the season premiere, Don Wildman travels to the "City of Angels", his hometown, where he goes Nazi military camp high in the valley, climbs one of many active clandestine oil rigs next to a neighborhood, and navigates the miles-long stretch of "lost canals" in Venice Beach . | |||
| 2 | "Seattle" | May 23, 2011 | |
|
Wildman reveals the "Emerald City" from the Cascade Mountains where an avalanche occurred, and climbs to the top of a massive Douglas fir in the Seattle rain forest to cut it down. | |||
| 3 | "San Francisco" | June 6, 2011 | |
|
Don travels to "The Bay City" where he discovers an old dungeon for punishment cells in ship yard building. | |||
| 4 | "Arizona" | June 13, 2011 | |
|
During his trip to Martian space colony in the Sonoran Desert . | |||
| 5 | "Tennessee" | June 20, 2011 | |
|
While in "The Volunteer State", rough waters of the power plant in eastern Tennessee. | |||
| 6 | "Buffalo" | June 27, 2011 | |
|
Don travels to frigid Buffalo Central Station and visits a five-story health castle-like resort that detoxified its guests with shock treatments. He also discovers an old tunnel system from the early 19th century, gets access to a 100-year-old powerhouse run by the direct current transformers of Nikola Tesla, and explores concrete grain elevators that line the Buffalo River . | |||
| 7 | "Secrets of New York Islands" | October 4, 2011 | |
|
Don follows the endless waterways to find out how the islands of New York made the greatest city in the world possible. He gets access to Renwick Smallpox Hospital (once nicknamed "Dead House") on Roosevelt Island , an island once used to keep the less desirables out of the city. | |||
| 8 | "Dirty Secrets of Boston" | October 11, 2011 | |
| Don goes underground in Boston for a look at America's first subway, "The T" that broke ground in 1895, where workers discovered a mass grave with 900 skeletons that included British soldiers from the Battle of Bunker Hill. Then he takes to "The Interceptor", a 130-year-old tunnel in a sewage super highway, Main Sewage Works, built under the city in Dorchester that was one of the first centralized sewers in the country. Don also checks out the second-largest waste treatment plant in the U.S., an innovative structure on Deer Island that helped clean up the once-filthy Boston Harbor, and climbs one of the plant's high-tech windmills that provides power to the city. Lastly, he investigates Fort Strong on Long Island, a concrete fort built in the 1890s that was a part of a coastal defense system to protect the city from warships. | |||
| 9 | "Transforming The Big Apple" | October 18, 2011 | |
|
Don returns to New York City and uncovers the Big Apple's hidden secrets. First, he goes inside the Yonkers that is under restoration for the town's riverwalk project. Next, it's off to Brooklyn to go canoeing in the filthy Gowanus Canal and under the Brower's Mill Bridge which was used in Washington's retreat from the British during the Battle of Brooklyn. Don also checks out the labyrinth beneath Plymouth Church, a place once called the "central grand depot of the Underground Railroad" run by Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn Heights. Then he investigates Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, one of the most exclusive cemeteries in the country. Lastly, he goes to Coney Island Creek to climb aboard a homemade submarine named Quester built by steelworker Jerry Bianco to find sunken treasure on the Andrea Doria . | |||
| 10 | "Hawaii" | October 25, 2011 | |
| Don travels to | |||
| 11 | "St. Louis" | November 1, 2011 | |
|
Don visits 1904 World's Fair and to provide electricity to the city. Also, Don checks out the decapitated Cotton Belt Freight Depot which delivered cotton to the city by a greedy robber baron. Lastly, he climbs atop the first dome made of cast and raw iron in America inside the old court house.[2] | |||
| 12 | "Pittsburgh" | November 10, 2011 | |
|
Wildman visits Pittsburgh, the steel-making capital of the world that built modern America, to reveal how this dirty industry town turned itself into a hi-tech 21st century metropolis. First, Don gets special access to the abandoned Golden Triangle, and checks out a robotics institute, Smith Hall of Carnegie Mellon University.[3] | |||
| 13 | "Twin Cities" | November 20, 2011 | |
|
Don explores the St. Anthony Falls, an infrastructure that rebuilt the dam in Minneapolis. Lastly, he visits the innovative Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, home of the Minnesota Vikings, that was under construction after a blizzard ripped through its 27-year-old roof.[4] | |||
Season 2 (2012)
| No. | Title | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | "Making Gold, Escaping Alcatraz & Tunneling Under Grand Central[5]" | April 17, 2012 | |
|
In the second season premiere, host Don Wildman blasts and pours gold, visits Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California . | |||
| 15 | "Wrestling Gators, Flying the Good Year Blimp & Earthquake-Proofing San Francisco[6]" | April 24, 2012 | |
|
Wildman Denver, Colorado . | |||
| 16 | "Fighting Wildfires, Scaling Bridges & Making Snow[7]" | May 1, 2012 | |
|
Don Wildman learns how to fight " Times Square New Year's Eve Ball located inside the Times Square Building in Midtown Manhattan; and saves the burned-out Big Four Bridge in Louisville, Kentucky . | |||
| 17 | "Digging Under Manhattan, Climbing Coasters, & Training in Disaster City[8]" | May 8, 2012 | |
|
Wildman checks out the construction of a new subway tunnel on 2nd Avenue in Southern Florida . | |||
| 18 | "Manning Nasa's Mars Rover, Stamping Out Coins & Taking Water From Toilet to Tap" | May 15, 2012 | |
|
Wildman gets an inside look at the Bay Bridge Project when he scales the new Houston, Texas, learns how neon signs on the strip are designed at Yesco (Young Electric Sign Company) in Las Vegas, Nevada, and discovers how a waste water system turns raw sewage into 70 gallons of clean water in Orange County, California . | |||
| 19 | "Bobsled Racing, Automated Airport Baggage & Backstage Acrobatic Aquatic Show" | May 22, 2012 | |
|
Wildman goes Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, gets down n' dirty in America's second largest garbage dump at Puente Hills Landfill in Puente Hills, California, and helps restore Wolf Creek Dam, a man-made dam that provides flood control on the Cumberland River in Jamestown, Kentucky . | |||
| 20 | "Digging for Sea Salt; Demolishing a Bridge; Atop a Tramway" | June 5, 2012 | |
|
Wildman rides and services an Plum Brook Station, a NASA testing grounds in Sandusky, Ohio, and clears out a pipe from the Pump House of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California . | |||
| 21 | "Atop the World's Largest Domed Stadium, Entertaining with Water, Fire and Ice & Crushing Concrete Roadways" | June 11, 2012 | |
|
Wildman blasts through the streets of Bellagio, then the colorful ice fountain at CityCenter and then the volcanic fire show at The Mirage, sees what goes into designing a survival shelter in the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and helps with "PK crushing" concrete in Akron, Ohio . | |||
| 22 | "Launching a Rocket, Demolishing a Pier and Firing Rounds" | June 18, 2012 | |
|
Wildman learns how firearms are made from different metals at Boston, Massachusetts . | |||
| 23 | "Navigating Rapids; Mucking Out Pig Stalls; Conquering a Rodeo" | July 15, 2012 | |
|
Wildman cleans pig stalls in Miami, Florida . | |||
| 24 | "Blasting Granite, Bobbing for Logs, Training with the Pit Crew" | July 22, 2012 | |
| The host goes river bobbing for logs in South Carolina; trains with a pit crew in North Carolina; explores sea caves on the Carolina coast; and gets behind the controls of a Boeing 767. | |||
| 25 | "Drag Racing, Scaling Water Slides, and Logistics by UPS" | July 29, 2012 | |
| Don Wildman goes drag racing in North Carolina, scales a waterslide in Texas and sorts packages at a UPS facility in Louisville. | |||
| 26 | "Exploding Fireworks, Building Jet Engines, and Reconstructing the National Cathedral" | August 5, 2012 | |
| The host tests fireworks in California, helps build jet engines in North Carolina, and carves stone for the Washington National Cathedral. | |||
Season 3 (2013)
| No. | Title | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | "High-Tech Adventures" | June 4, 2013 | |
|
A futuristic array of luggage conveyors; a manned rover designed for exploration of other planets . | |||
| 28 | "Man at Work" | June 4, 2013 | |
| Toughest work environments, including fighting fires, cleaning up waterways and repairing an Olympic venue. | |||
| 29 | "Amazing Engineering" | June 11, 2013 | |
|
scrap metal . | |||
| 30 | "All-Access Adventure" | June 11, 2013 | |
| Gator wrestling; NASCAR pit crews; a Las Vegas show; the Goodyear Blimp. | |||
References
- ^ "Off Limits Episode Guide 2011 Season 1 - Hawaii, Episode 10". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
- ^ "Off Limits Episode Guide 2011 Season 1 - St. Louis, Episode 11". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
- ^ "Pittsburgh : Off Limits". Travel Channel. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
- ^ "Twin Cities : Off Limits". Travel Channel. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
- ^ "Off Limits Episode Guide 2012 Season 1 - Making Gold, Escaping Alcatraz & Tunneling Under Grand Central, Episode 14". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
- ^ "Off Limits Episode Guide 2012 Season 1 - Wrestling Gators, Flying the Good Year Blimp & Earthquake-Proofing San Francisco, Episode 15". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
- ^ "Off Limits Episode Guide 2012 Season 1 - Fighting Wildfires, Scaling Bridges & Making Snow, Episode 16". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
- ^ "Off Limits Episode Guide 2012 Season 1 - Digging Under Manhattan, Climbing Coasters, & Training in Disaster City, Episode 17". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
