Dirty Jobs

In the course of the show, viewers come to appreciate the skills and gumption of people who do dirty jobs | Gene Edward Veith

There are some jobs that Americans just won't do anymore, some say, which is why we need illegal immigrants to do them. You can't say that of Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs (Tuesdays, 9:00 p.m., Discovery Channel).

"I explore the country looking for people who are not afraid to get dirty," he says in the show's opening. "Hard-working men and women who earn an honest living doing the kind of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us."

The wise-cracking host apprentices himself to roach exterminators, hot tar roofers, livestock artificial inseminators, and disaster cleanup crews. He picks up road kill, shucks oysters, services septic tanks, and swings a sledgehammer.

In the course of the show, viewers come to appreciate the skills and gumption of people who do this for a living. A rough, grubby-looking potato farmer from Colorado turns out to have the chops of a research biologist, cloning plants and engineering new kinds of potatoes. We learn about the complexities of feed mills and turkey farms, what farmers do with manure, and how impressive sheer manual labor can be.