Forged in Fire might be one of the strangest reality shows out there.
But look underneath all that smoke and steel, and you'll find a fascinating history, a little
danger, and a whole lot of controversy.
This is the untold truth of Forged in Fire.
If you're wondering how someone comes up with the idea for a TV show like this, wonder no
more: you simply pay attention to your teenage kids.
Tim Healy, head of programming and development at the History Channel, told Decider that
the inspiration for Forged in Fire came from his 14-year-old daughter's love of cooking
competition shows such as Chopped.
As anyone who's ever interacted with a 14-year-old kid knows, connecting with them can be pretty
challenging.
So to spend some time with her, Healy would sit and watch those culinary shows, and he
began to wonder how he could do a cooking competition show of his own, without having
to include any cooking.
He also knew from experience that, whenever a reality show featured a weapon of some kind,
the ratings went up.
The idea eventually evolved towards bladed weapons specifically, but Healy stuck with
his initial inspiration, structuring the format like a cooking show, with new competitors
every episode.
When Tim Healy was first spinning up the idea for his reality series, he imagined a show
where people created "weapons" from scratch, but he hadn't locked down just what kind of
weapons he wanted his show to revolve around.
In fact, he consulted with Jodi Flynn, a fellow producer who was pitching a similar concept
at the time, called Gunsmiths.
Gunsmiths was a riff on Project Runway that would have seen a fixed cast creating their
own guns, with different challenges every week and a focus on the interactions and relationships
between the smiths.
But Healy really wanted a fresh group of smiths every week, in order to take a deeper dive
into the culture surrounding the craft.
On top of that, his research told him that on other reality shows, it was bladed weapons
that resulted in huge ratings spikes.
Soon enough, the gun aspect of the show was put aside in favor of the bladed weapons approach
that has served the show so well.
As either group will tell you, there's a big difference between being a weapons expert
and being a bladesmith.
And you might imagine that judging bladesmiths on their craft would require a considerable
knowledge of smithing.
Indeed, judges J. Neilson, David Baker, and Ben Abbott have extensive and impressive blade-making
experience.
Hosts Wil Willis and Doug Marcaida, however, came to the series with exactly zero bladesmithing
knowledge.
Willis is a former Army Ranger with a ton of experience using weapons of all sorts,
and Marcaida is an edged weapon expert, knife designer, and martial artist.
So it's not like they don't have the knowledge to judge a finished weapon.
Still, the producers must've been a little concerned about this lack of smithing expertise.
Luckily, Willis had finally begun learning the basics of forging by the show's fourth
season.
Moreover, the History Channel even posted proof of Neilson teaching both Willis and
Marcaida how to bladesmiths, putting to rest any complaints that the smiths competing on
the show might not be getting the best judging experience.
"That looks good.
Now, it will cut."
It takes a lot of skill to get cast on any show focused on a particular craft, and Forged
in Fire is no different.
After all, you can't just wander the local mall asking people if they want to come make
a 12th-century Crusader sword.
You need to find actual bladesmiths who have a shot at successfully making the weapons
they're tasked with.
Contestant Gabriel Mabry of Doberman Forge has detailed some of the steps he had to go
through, including answering questions about metallurgy and doing both a preliminary interview
and a background check.
And contestant Dustin Parrella told the Richland Source that the induction process goes even
further than that.
After applying to be on the show and sitting for multiple interviews via phone and video,
he had to actually forge a blade to the producers' specifications and submit photos of the finished
product.
And after all that, he still had to do a couple more interviews before being invited to compete
on the show.
Every week on Forged in Fire, four bladesmiths accept the challenge of making whatever weapon
the show chooses, and the winner receives $10,000.
That's pretty good money, even when you take the extreme effort involved into account,
both in making the weapon and in getting on the show in the first place.
But the three "losing" smiths get nothing, aside from a trip to New York City, where
the series is filmed, and the chance to be on TV, of course.
And that's too bad, because the median salary for a bladesmith is estimated to be about
$31,000, with a low of $20,000, so most of these smiths could probably use that cash.
Still, appearing on the show has other benefits.
For example, Gabe Mabry told The Stanly News & Press that, before being a contestant, his
bladesmithing work was just a side hustle he did along with several other jobs, but
after being on the show, he was able to begin bladesmithing full time.
It's easy to imagine that making weapons comes with a few legal complications, and there
are a lot of rumors swirling around about what happens to all those weapons after filming
on Forged in Fire is finished.
Many viewers note that weapons from past shows are often spotted hanging on the walls of
the studio, and some have claimed that under New York State law, the weapons have to be
classified as "props" and kept by the production company.
In other words, according to the rumors, contestants don't get to keep the weapons they worked
so hard for.
That sounds reasonable, especially when you've got a bunch of people making something terrifying
like a Moro kris.
But according to reality TV writer Andy Dehnart, it's also 100 percent false.
Dehnart actually spoke with a spokesperson for the show, who clarified that while the
winning weapon is kept on display on their Winners Wall, everyone else gets their weapon
back.
The spokesperson said:
"As a symbol of our gratitude and out of respect for the amount of work put into the weapon,
we return it to the creator."
As with so many other things, watching a show about bladesmiths isn't really a substitute
for learning how to smith the right way.
As former contestant Kim Stahl told the New York Daily News:
"Not every episode outlines all the procedures that were followed."
In other words, the magic of editing means you might not be shown some absolutely essential,
yet kinda dull, parts of the process.
For example, many experienced bladesmiths have complained that while the show loves
a fiery "quench", it never shows the metal being tempered, which is a slower, less showy
process designed to increase the durability of the metal after hardening.
They also complain that the judges often misuse bladesmithing jargon and speculate that many
of the failed weapons are the result of steps being skipped by the smiths.
That's all fine for something presented for entertainment purposes, of course.
Just keep in mind you're not going to be ready to start your own bladesmithing business after
seeing a few episodes.
And nobody learned that lesson harder than John Gomes.
In 2017, Forged in Fire fan John Gomes of Cohoes, New York, decided to spend one extremely
windy afternoon trying to make a hammer in his backyard.
To do this, he used a fire he started in a barrel as a forge.
The fire soon grew out of control, and the wind did the rest, spreading the fire to Gomes'
home and then nearby apartment buildings, eventually driving nearly 30 people from their
homes.
Shawn Morse, the mayor of Cohoes, called it the worst disaster the city had ever seen.
Okay, obviously a show about making bladed weapons is going to be at least a little dangerous,
but it's not actually the blades that you should worry about if you wander onto the
set of Forged in Fire.
Although they don't exactly help.
"I just finished it, and it was perfectly sharp, and I put a coat of oil on it, and
then it slipped out of my hand, and I went to grab it as it was falling, and it just
cut through this finger."
Really, though, it's the heat you've got to worry about.
You know, the fire from the title.
With four forges lined up next to each other, plus the heat of the television studio lights,
the set can get seriously hot.
And while the place is vented, it's vented against asphyxiation, not heat.
Of course, the heat is part of the challenge, and experienced bladesmiths are used to working
under similar conditions, but that doesn't necessarily prepare you for the intense, baking
heat of the show's set.
While the contestants are provided plenty of water and encouraged to drink it frequently,
the show has seen several cases of heat exhaustion occur, and there's been at least one episode
where a contestant has collapsed.
Watching professionals and accomplished hobbyists work to a high standard is one of the greatest
pleasures of reality show television, especially when it involves something exotic like hand-crafting
bladed weapons.
But a lot of the weapons on this show aren't so great.
Some are ugly, some are easily broken, and some simply don't do the one thing a blade
is supposed to do, cut stuff.
Bladesmith Steve Calvert analyzed the show's episodes and determined that most of the failed
weapons were due to some pretty fundamental forging errors, ones you would think experienced
bladesmiths would know to avoid.
But it's important to remember that this is a TV show, after all, and the contestants
are working under artificial time and material constraints.
They're also striving to create a weapon they're probably unfamiliar with, all on an incredibly
hot set that's crowded with equipment and other smiths…as well as a TV crew.
You can't blame them for messing up once or twice.
Any time weapons are involved with pretty much anything, things can get a little complicated,
and that's also true for Forged in Fire.
This is a show, after all, where judge Doug Marcaida happily proclaims that a weapon "will
kill" when he's pleased with the test results.
"It will kill."
But the show's focus on blades and their ability to cut through ballistic dummies and animal
carcasses has had some police and parents' groups in an uproar ever since its debut.
For example, some British police organizations have criticized the show for glorifying bladed
weaponry, worrying that it might be an especially bad influence on kids.
This might be particularly true in the United Kingdom, where so-called "knife crime" has
hit historic highs in recent years.
According to The Guardian, crimes involving bladed weapons rose seven percent in 2019,
nearly 45,000 cases in just 12 months.
Unsurprisingly, the History Channel dismisses such worries, noting that there's no evidence
of any link between the show and crime rates involving knives or otherwise.
Bladesmithing has long been a male-dominated field, an issue that has caused the show some
difficulties of its own.
Forged in Fire has been criticized for the lack of female representation, especially
since the host and judges are exclusively male.
The entire first season failed to feature a single woman as a contestant during its
run.
It's not entirely the show's fault, of course.
There are only four female Master Bladesmiths in the country, after all, and Audra Draper
became the first female Master Bladesmith just 20 years ago.
The show has made a real effort to increase the number of female smiths, however.
Producer Tim Healy explained that, in season one, it was hard enough to find any bladesmiths
willing to come on the show because it wasn't at all known to the general public.
Since then, the show has managed to have several female smiths on, and a few have even won
their episode and walked away with the $10,000 prize.
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