Why it’s been ‘a damn tough year’ for Life Below Zero’s cast — watch the mournful preview
While the Emmy-winning Life Below Zero is going strong, entering its 11th year on television, it’s been “a damn tough year” for its cast, as one of them says.
Death, divorce, and disaster from climate change are all looming over the cast members.
LBZ season 21—which is officially season 11, because everyone counts differently—premiered on Labor Day and settles into its usual Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET timeslot on National Geographic tonight, followed by the spin-off Life Below Zero: Next Generation at 10 ET. (Previous seasons are all on Disney+.)
The trailer for this Life Below Zero season is rather melancholy, with the cast members talking about what they’re struggling with—though it ends on a note of optimism. Watch:
Who’s on Life Below Zero now
Here’s the cast of Life Below Zero 21—along with what their primary focus is this season, according to a summary provided to me by BBC Studios Los Angeles, which produces the show:
- Ricko DeWilde and his children, who are increasingly independent, must continue to keep the flame of their Athabaskan culture from dying out in the rugged yet bountiful Alaskan Interior.
- Sue Aikens will explore areas of the tundra that were previously unreachable, but she’ll need to be wary of the increasing predator activity that looms in every direction.
- Chip and Agnes Hailstone welcome new grandchildren to the family, and their daughters will look to take the lessons they’ve learned from their parents as their guide as they teach the next generation of Inupiaq residents of the Arctic Northwest.
- Jessie Holmes recovers from a near-death accident which could thwart his ability to provide for himself in the Brushkana wilderness.
- For Andy Bassich and Denise Becker, the closure of the salmon fishery along the Yukon River will force them to travel beyond the comforts of Calico Bluff and find a replacement food source for their survival.
- Cole [Sturgis], the newest cast member of LBZ, struggles with a changing family while carving out a subsistence lifestyle in one of the last remaining float houses in Alaska
