Black Gold is a documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

-style reality television series that chronicles three oil drilling rigs in Andrews County, Texas, 30 miles northwest of Odessa

Odessa, Texas

Odessa is a city in and the county seat of Ector County, Texas, United States. It is located primarily in Ector County, although a small portion of the city extends into Midland County. Odessa's population was 99,940 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Odessa, Texas Metropolitan...

. It is produced by Thom Beers

Thom Beers

Thom Beers is an American television producer and narrator/ voice over artist. Beers, a former producer and executive with Turner Broadcasting and Paramount Syndicated Television, has produced over 40 television series since the mid 1990s, most under the banner of his own production company formed...

, creator of Deadliest Catch

Deadliest Catch

Deadliest Catch is a documentary/reality television series produced by Original Productions for the Discovery Channel. It portrays the real life events aboard fishing vessels in the Bering Sea during the Alaskan king crab and C. opilio crab fishing seasons.The Aleutian Islands port of Dutch Harbor,...

and Ice Road Truckers

Ice Road Truckers

Ice Road Truckers is a documentary-style reality television series that premiered on History on June 17, 2007.-History:In 2000, History aired a 46-minute episode titled "Ice Road Truckers" as part of the Suicide Missions series...

. The Black Gold theme song is sung by country music star Trace Adkins

Trace Adkins

Tracy Darrell "Trace" Adkins is an American country music artist. He made his debut in 1996 with the album Dreamin' Out Loud, released on Capitol Records Nashville. Since then, Adkins has released seven more studio albums and two Greatest Hits compilations...

. The title "Black Gold" comes from a slang term for oil.

Black Gold airs Wednesday nights on truTV  at 10pm. It is also shown as a special presentation on TNT

Turner Network Television

Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...

 in high definition. Starting 8 April 2009, the show also airs in the United Kingdom on Five, under the title Oil Riggers. Season 3 began on September 8, 2010.

First Season

The first season follows three rigs—Longhorn, Viking, and Big Dog—that have only 50 days to successfully locate and retrieve the crude oil. The roughneck

Roughneck

Roughneck is a slang term for a person whose occupation is hard-manual labour, typically in a dangerous working environment. The term applies across a number of industries, but is most commonly associated with oil rigs...

s, as they are called on the rig, endure exhausting and dangerous work demands. Oil rigs Longhorn and Viking are funded by wildcatter

Wildcatter

A wildcatter is an American term for a person who drills wildcat wells, which are oil wells drilled in areas not known to be oil fields. A wildcatter notable for his success was Texan oil tycoon Glenn McCarthy....

 Mike Lamonica while the Big Dog is funded by wildcatter Autry Stephens, both of whom have put up millions of dollars in hopes of finding new deposits of oil. The show also features pipe salesman Michael “Rooster” McConaughey, brother of actor Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey

Matthew David McConaughey is an American actor.After a series of minor roles in the early 1990s, McConaughey gained notice for his breakout role in Dazed and Confused . He then appeared in films such as A Time to Kill, Contact, U-571, Tiptoes, Sahara, and We Are Marshall...

.

Second Season

The second season (premiered 8 August 2009) only follows one rig, Big Dog rig number 28, owned by Autry Stephens. The season is centered around the requirement given by Stephens to finish four wells in 50 days in order to maintain the lease on the land. One notable returning character is Gerald Williams, who was fired in the previous season.

Third Season

The third season (premiered 8 Sept 2010) began with hostile landowner Peggy Hauser's animosity toward Autry Stevens and his roughnecks wildcatting on her property.

Fourth Season

According to truTV's official website, new episodes will begin airing November 30, 2011. The show will air Wednesdays at 10pm.

External links

• truTV's "Black Gold" website