Black Gold
Upcoming episodes
Sep 30th
600p
Promotion Perils
The crews of Big Dog 28 have been charged with the near impossible task of drilling four holes in fifty days. If the crews can’t make the deadline, the company will lose the drilling leases on their remaining two wells that will be worth two hundred million in oil revenue – lose the lease, lose the company. On the day crew, the rig’s worm Cheston finally gets in the good graces of his hotheaded driller Pee Wee. The two find common ground just long enough for Cheston to get a promotion, but as he will soon find out: with the new position, come new dangers. The nervous worm will have to use everything he’s learned if he expects to keep his fingers intact. On the night crew, driller Ron Pane is finding his hulking roughneck Tank’s attitude harder to manage. As the ex-prizefighter is forced into scrubbing duty, Tank’s ego is pushed to the edge, but hurt feelings are the least of Ron’s problems. Tool pusher Freddy plays on Ron’s and graveyard crew driller Pete’s worst superstitious fear with pranks that may have put a bad omen on the rig. After a series of problems cripple 28, Freddy is forced to rethink his actions. Off the rig, Josh grapples with the tough hours of the roughneck lifestyle as he tries to keep buxom Midland Roughneck’s cheerleader, Sydney, from slipping through his fingers. He hopes a late-night dip in the pool and a west Texas-style barbecue will do the trick. Back on 28 – the rig is plagued with mechanical problems and there is plenty of blame to go around. The rig isn’t drilling, and Big Dog owner Autry Stephens won’t stand by for long before he decides to shut this operation down and fire the crew.
Sep 30th
700p
The Well from Hell
The Well from Hell has the roughnecks nervous, and if they don’t finish this hole by the end of the week it will mean the unemployment line. The blame for most of the delays and setbacks has been placed on Pee Wee and Freddy. Pee Wee starts his shift determined to get ahead, but runs the rig hard and is hit with a brake failure. Rig supervisor David Kiser is called out and Cheston is convinced this will be Pee Wee’s final curtain. Gerald is waiting in the wings, confident the driller job will soon be his, but he is about to make a decision that will change the course of his life and send him into a downward spiral. Cheston struggles to save his friend but, in the end, Gerald’s demons get the best of him. Ron and his evening crew show up and will have to clean up another day's crew mistake. They are not happy to be ripping pipe…again. The men are exhausted, and Travis is on edge. Ron tries to get his head back in the game, but Travis isn’t playing and walks off the rig floor. No one knows if Travis will be back. Freddy returns to the rig determined to hit total depth on his shift. He must redeem his good name in the oil field and with 9 feet left to drill what could possibly go wrong? With only three feet left to drill Freddy has to make the decision to play it safe or risk it all. Tool pusher Jerry takes over for Freddy and the men couldn’t be happier. He is a 40-year veteran of the oil field and most of the crew have worked with him for years. When they are a man down on the rig floor Jerry confidently steps forward to take over and seconds later a heavy chain snaps and slashes him across the face.
Sep 30th
800p
Chain of Disaster
Disaster strikes Big Dog 28 when a snapped chain leaves tool pusher Jerry blind in one eye. After being fired, Gerald finds an unlikely source of income, but when talk turns to the wedding plans, his stubborn attitude puts the engagement in jeopardy. Pee Wee kicks Cheston off the day crew for mouthing off to the other hands, while Tank’s reckless attitude puts the night crew in danger. Fighting on Big Dog 28 brings supervisor David Kiser to the rig to decide who stays and who goes, but when the transmission overheats, Big Dog’s hope of finishing 4 wells in 50 days goes up in smoke.
Oct 7th
600p
Three Days to Go
It’s down to the wire on the Big Dog. The roughnecks have three days to finish the final hole. Pee Wee’s stoked now that he’s got Tank on the day crew. Ron’s less thrilled to have Cheston working the evening shift, but he’s determined to get his worm finally up to speed. Now with the rig in perfect working order, a new experimental bit drilling at top speed, and a crew primed to make a hole, it all goes perfectly smoothly, right? Wrong. All hell breaks loose when Mack takes a pipe spinner to the head. Tank gets run off the rig for failing a drug test and Freddy is forced to run the drill. Meanwhile, off the rig, the clock is running down on Gerald's life as a single man. He wishes he were still on the rig as Rosie drags him from one wedding store to another. Picking out wedding rings is not his thing. The crews race to make the final TD and Autry prepares to shut it down if the roughnecks miss their deadline.
Oct 7th
700p
Dealing with the Devil
Being a roughneck is going to get a whole lot rougher when Big Dog’s owner, independent oilman Autry Stevens, decides to make a deal with the devil and lease land from the local landowner and hell raiser, Peggy Hauser. If he can avoid her wrath – and gun – Autry stands to win millions on the wildcat gamble. On the rig…the pressure is building, and the roughnecks are at each other’s throats. Last year’s worm Cheston is back but is still struggling to gain his fellow roughnecks’ respect. Troublemaker and ex-con Brandon Watson has taken him under his wing, but with the shortest fuse in the oil field, Brandon can only take so much. If the pressure of wildcatting wasn’t enough, a familiar face returns for a shot at redemption. Last year, MMA fighter Terry “Tank” Hannon stepped foot into the ring of oil and was fired a few weeks later for a failed drug test. After a stint in rehab, he’s back to redeem his reputation, but the fast pace of drilling might prove too much for this aging roughneck. And to make matters worse – Tank must answer to Oscar Barreras, the tough as nails doesn’t take anything from anyone. Although veteran roughneck Gerald Williams is not allowed to step foot on the rig, he still schemes to strike it rich and is scraping by anyway he can. Newly married, he is going to do anything he can to provide for his family…even if it means putting his own life at risk. Even though shifts change, the rig never stops and neither does the drama. With a rig move from hell, wildcatting into unknown territory, and a hostile landowner – tensions are at an all-time high. As the tension on the rig rises…Peggy is watching their every move…and at any moment it might explode…
Oct 7th
800p
A Supervisor's Sport
Peggy pays a neighborly visit to the rig and lays down the law with tool pusher Freddy Moore. She assures him that one false move from any of the hands will send her back out to handle them herself with anything but kid gloves. The boys of Rig 28 are already taking heat from Freddy and their other pusher, Jerry Chancy. Both men are vying for one supervisor’s spot and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to drive the roughnecks to hell and back to earn that promotion. Day crew driller, Oscar Barreras, has to try to meet the tool pusher’s demands with the constraints of working with new hand, “Twist.” Twist meanwhile needs this new job to work out because he’s trying to stay one step ahead of a checkered past. Oscar’s other newbie, Tank Hannon, has his own troubled past to sort out. Tank just got married and looks forward to a brighter future with his new bride, but as is usually the case with Tank, life with the new Mrs. Hannon takes an unexpected turn that sends him reeling. Veteran roughneck Gerald Williams has plans to launch a new business venture that he hopes gets him back in the oil fields after being fired last year. But, like Tank, things don’t go exactly as planned and Gerald’s new venture takes and unexpected and hilarious turn for the worse. On the evening crew, Cheston tries to work his way into Brandon’s good graces after making a brash and ill-advised play for respect in the previous episode. Cheston soon realizes that trying to woo a hothead like Brandon is an uphill battle that may never pay off. His driller, James Thompson, has his own battle with the rig when he muddles through a series of mechanical mishaps that jeopardize Jerry and Freddy’s promotions and may ultimately cost James his job.
Oct 14th
600p
Rig Move Woes
After an exhausting rig move, the roughnecks have finally started drilling—but right from the get-go, the crew of Big Dog 28 is having problems. Tank’s wife has just kicked him out of the house, and he’s feeling pretty low. Driller Oscar tries to cheer Tank up, but tool pusher Freddy is much more concerned about Tank’s performance at work, regardless of his problems at home. Freddy is feeling a bit of added pressure on this wildcat hole as he is competing with tool pusher Jerry for a shot at a supervisor job in the Big Dog offices. Freddy tells Oscar that he needs him to pick up the pace and Oscar pushes his crew to dig faster, but his push to make up time is stopped short when the bit gets stuck. Now, Oscar and Freddy try to free the stuck bit, but when neither one of them can work it free, Freddy has to swallow his pride and call Jerry rather than admit defeat to the front office. Later on in the night shift, veteran driller Sammy quits with no notice, leaving Freddy a driller short, and in a major bind. An open driller spot is going to shake up Rig 28—the roughnecks will vie for a chance to move up, and the competition is going to be tough. Josh, Ben Green, and Brandon are all contenders for the open driller spot, but they have different motivations and different styles of landing the job. As the hands try to prove themselves worthy of a promotion, Freddy is having trouble keeping the hopes for his own promotion alive. Tank’s private problems show up at the rig, Peggy is on Freddy about a broken cattle guard, and Cheston is giving driller James more attitude than he can handle. Freddy demotes James to make way for a new driller that will hopefully make Freddy look better than James did, but unfortunately for Freddy, Jerry steps in at the last minute.
Oct 14th
700p
Betting on Ben
Nearing the bottom of their first wildcat well, the roughnecks of Rig 28 are counting on rookie driller Ben to step up and help bring it in, but tool pusher Freddy is betting Ben can’t handle the out-of-control roughnecks. Sure enough, it takes not time for Ben to butt heads with Cheston for disobeying a direct order. Brandon adds insult to injury when he makes a critical mistake that threatens to shut the rig down. Ben quickly finds out that the driller job may be a lot more than he bargained for. It’s been a bumpy partnership between Big Dog and Peggy Hauser, so Freddy tries to butter up the fiery landowner with a batch of fresh baked brownies. She can’t be bought off so easily, especially when she discovers that the roughnecks have been throwing trash all over her property. Freddy’s gesture of culinary kindness backfires and doesn’t stop Peggy from visiting the rig and reading him the riot act. Freddy’s headache turns into a migraine when he catches Tank on his cellphone ignoring his job on the rig. As usual, Tank's personal life is turning him into a liability on the rig. News of malfunctions and delays on the rig come to the attention of Big Dog’s Walter Smith, so the drilling manager shows up at the rig to cross-examine his tool pusher. Through Freddy covers well, the visit pushes him to the edge, and he takes his anger out on his roughnecks, especially his new favorite target, Cheston. Despite being on the bottom of the pecking order, Cheston fights back and shows that he may not remain Rig 28’s whipping boy for long.
Oct 14th
800p
West Texas Wild Weather
Though the roughnecks of Rig 28 haven’t found a drop of oil, they’re knee-deep in something else west Texas is famous for: bad weather. All hell breaks loose on the rig when the skies open to unleash torrential rains, gale-force winds, and massive bolts of lightning. To keep their jobs, every man on Rig 28 will put their life on the line. As the clouds gather overhead, violent outbursts erupt on the rig below. In his drive to claim the coveted Supervisor promotion, “Hurricane” Freddy pushes his crew to the breaking point, bullying everything and everyone in his path—but this is one storm the roughnecks refuse to weather. Unable to take the abuse, Brandon lets his temper loose and goes head-to-head with the tool pusher. And when perpetual worm Cheston disregards the rig rules, he finds himself facing Freddy’s full wrath…and the possibility of losing his job. To make matters worse, Big Dog’s most muscle-bound man, Tank, is missing. There’s no guarantee Jerry and Freddy will let the absent roughneck come back…leaving Tank’s job up in the air. When it finally rains, it pours…and discharges a barrage of lightning that ignites a nearby rig, burning it to the ground. For the boys of Big Dog, it’s a grim reminder of what they’re up against as they work into the night and battle the storm. Another bolt of lightning knocks out the power and brings Rig 28 to a grinding halt, but for all the roughnecks know, the worst is yet to come. Every passing second increases the chance that their rig won’t be standing come morning.