Netflix’s latest competitive series will leave you wondering if it’s actually a competition or just marine biologist propaganda (in a good way). All The Sharks is a competition in which 4 teams participate to win a grand prize of 50 grand for a marine charity. Yes, you read that right, not for themselves, but for their chosen charity. The teams are taken to multiple locations across the planet and dropped off wherever they like in the ocean to find the most species within a stipulated time frame per day. Some locations get special nighttime visibility, i.e. the mariners get to see the creatures of the night, while others are murky even during a sunny day. The show is hosted by Tom “The Blowfish” Hird, who wears his beard in a signature braid and gets the contestants pumped for each round. The series begins with no eliminations, but after a few episodes, contestants start getting kicked off, so there can be only one winning team. Each team gets 4 tanks of air and 8 hours a day, but what they do in the ocean and where they go is entirely up to them. With that said, let’s jump into everything that went down in All The Sharks.
Which Team Gets Eliminated First?
The first shark hunting site is a place called Fuvamulah Island in the Maldives. Here, the big catch is the “thresher shark,” an elusive shark for which a single click is worth 75 points. The points are awarded based on the rarity of the shark species; the rarer the species, the more points you’ll get. But I think the Thresher is the most “expensive” of the lot on the show. The four competing teams include the Land Sharks: Rosie and Randy; Shark Docs: Brendan and Chris; Gills Gone Wild: MJ and Aliah; and the Great British Bait Off: Sarah and Dan. For the most part, in the first episode, we get to see how these teams work together. While the other teams seem to be accustomed to each other and have worked with each other for a while, Great British Bait Off seems to suffer because it looks like Sarah and Dan, the Brits, don’t actually know each other very well. This leads to quite some conflicts in the first couple of episodes; however, as time passes by, they catch onto each other’s rhythm and start to trust each other a little. The unfortunate bit is that though they’re the only team that sees the thresher, it’s from the boat, and Dan only manages to catch the splash. Somehow, though, the Land Sharks end up in 4th position, putting Great British Bait Off at 3rd, and then Gills Gone Wild at 2nd, which leaves Shark Docs in first place.
Episode 2 takes the teams to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Since it’s winter in Australia, the teams get only 4 hours during the day; however, they get a special nighttime dive to find some special species you can only spot in the darkness. The Land Sharks decide to go out further, where they can get both shallow reef and deep waters to get the best of both worlds, but does it pay off? The Shark Docs aren’t far behind either; they try to make the most of the time they have, finding the rare nurse sharks. While Gills Gone Wild suffers at the beginning, they end up finding rare finds like the epaulette shark that gets them 30 points each. The Land Sharks are at the bottom, but they manage to find bamboo sharks in shallow water, each worth 27 points; they find 3. However, despite camping out there so no other team gets those points, the Shark Docs eventually do get there, and since they’re already on top, it’s a huge advantage for them. Meanwhile, Dan and Sarah come up with a new strategy in the low visibility. Sarah watches from the ground while Dan takes pictures inside the water. In round 2, despite their strategy, Dan and Sarah are in last place. Even with Aliah knowing her way around Heron Island, Gills Gone Wild ends up in 3rd place. Again, the winners are the Shark Docs after “stealing” points from the Land Sharks, who come in second place. This is as dramatic as the show gets.
The next stop is Tokyo, Japan, not a spot people think about for sharks, but now I’ve learned that you find real sharknados here. Hammerheads are critically endangered, so a single sighting can fetch you 20 points, but spotting a sharknado could get you 50 points or more. But in Japan, Gills Gone Wild ends up drifting into a restricted area, and some locals interfere with their safety buoy. However, they manage to get out just fine. Each round gives the teams a special advantage if they take a photo of a certain species, the game changer; for Japan, it’s the puffer fish. The girls of Gills Gone Wild even get stung this round, but fortunately, there’s a medic on the boat. Afraid of the jellyfish, the Land Sharks also back out, leaving only two teams trying for the game changer. It’s the Great British Bake Off that gets the picture of the game changer, which is huge for them because the day’s just been awful otherwise. It’s Gills Gone Wild who eventually find the sharknado with the banded hound shark they follow. Again, the bottom two are the Great British Bait Off and the Land Sharks. But of course, the winners are the Gills Gone Wild, who got the sharknado.
Next stop is South Africa, where everyone must chum to get the great white shark. The world’s highest population of great whites appears in these waters, but the conditions are just as hard to handle. Episode 4 is the first time a team has to get eliminated. The team with the lowest total score from the series so far goes out. Dan’s camera stops working here, and somehow Sarah doesn’t hear him say he needs to fix it, so he ends up leaving her down in the water, thinking she’s followed behind (yikes). In South Africa, we see some adorable sharks like the pajama sharks and the leopard sharks. Finally, when the pressure is high, the winning team is the Great British Bait Off in South Africa, but of course, there’s still a chance of elimination. The number one team is Shark Docs, number two is Great British Bait Off, and number three is Gills Gone Wild. The team that goes home first is the Land Sharks.
Who Are The Two Final Teams?
With only two episodes remaining, the competition gets intense, and the game changer in Bimini is a 50-point bonus for most species captured, a diversity bonus. The Bimini episode is largely focused on the Great British Bait Off because Sarah started her career here 10 years earlier and was also bitten by a lemon shark. But she gets over it a decade later and takes full advantage of the knowledge she has of the place, which pushes them to the number one spot, of course. They even get the diversity bonus, catapulting them to the top. Which leaves only two teams, Gills Gone Wild and Shark Docs. I do feel like the Brits had an advantage in this episode, but I guess you can’t really complain, and the second team to make it to the finals is Shark Docs.
Who Wins All The Sharks?
The final round is in the Galapagos Islands, a haven for untouched sharks. Honestly, the final episode doesn’t feel like a grand finale in the sense of it being a competition, but in that everybody is so excited to just be there and enjoy the view. The whale sharks here are worth 100 points. The teams finally make it to Darwin’s Arch, the spot where both teams expect to find the largest number of sharks and the rarest of them, too, the whale shark. The Shark Docs encounter orcas, and where there are orcas, there are no sharks, because the killer whale hunts sharks. Seeing the orcas, the Great British Bake Off decides to change strategies and head off somewhere else, possibly wasting precious time on travel. They find themselves in the Cave of Wonders, but they only find some rays there. The next day, both teams find themselves some nice, comfy viewing spots where they find eagle rays and some other low-scoring sharks.
In All The Sharks’ ending, the winners are the Shark Docs, who consistently ended up on top right from the start. It goes to show that if you’ve known each other for a decade, you’re likely going to be crowned champions of a competition like “All The Sharks.” In the final leaderboard of the show, we see that the scores are close at 172 and 165, with the Shark Docs in the lead. We don’t get to see the final scores, after the shark scores are doubled, but with the info we have, the final scores seem to be 292 and 246, with the Docs winning. The two charities they’ve chosen are Reef Environment Education Foundation and Ocean First Institution, both of which they work closely with. The show leaves you excited for the beauty of the underwater ecosystem and with hope that you’ll get to see more.
