Impossible Repairs

Going under one of the world's largest lakes for a multi-million dollar tunnel boring project in one of the fastest growing cities on Earth.

Offshore fish farming is big business, with big profits, big machines, and very big risks. In this episode, host Mike Davidson goes on perhaps his most physically demanding mission yet, joining the crew of Open Blue as they transport a school of Cobia whitefish worth $300,000 in future sales. For three days, he'll battle ocean waves, dive in shark-infested waters, and assist in excruciating repairs to ship engines and feeding dosers. And just when it looks like smooth sailing ahead, Mother Nature steps in to show who's really in charge.

Going behind the scenes at the Panama Canal Railway. Big track repairs, massive machines, and unrelenting deadlines make this one of the hardest and most important maintenance jobs in the world.

Ride the rails of Europe on a mission to haul hefty cargo north from Switzerland to the Netherlands. A journey which spans four countries with critical repairs necessary at every turn.

Go on an incredible journey across Lithuania on big trains packed to the brim. On the coast a fleet of gaints ships eagerly wait to collect their bounty and take it across the ocean.

Flying on one of the biggest helicopters on Earth, on a quest to pull valuable timber from the forest. Unfortunately for the crew huge repairs threaten to bring this mission to a halt.

In Philadelphia, Mike Davidson is on streets, in tunnels, on tracks and in trolley restoration garages - working shoulder-to-shoulder with the team that keeps one of America's largest and oldest mass transit systems running smoothly.

Mike Davidson goes to the biggest automated package sorting facility in the world - UPS Worldport in Louisville, Kentucky. Two million packages go through here every day.

Snowbird Ski battles to reduce the risk resulting from high snow levels and deadly avalanches.

A cross-country mission to cap the US’s estimated two million toxic, abandoned oil and gas wells.

Mike travels to San Diego to learn how U.S. Marines operate, maintain and repair the CH-53E Super Stallion, a heavy-lift helicopter that's been in use since the early 1980s.

The worldwide pandemic ceased operations on the world's only underwater habitat. Mike Davidson joins a crack repair crew as they dive in to bring it back to life and get NASA astronauts back inside for training.

Host Mike Davidson goes to the remote Atacama desert in Chile and to one of the most incredible and complex observatories on Earth - ALMA. He works alongside ALMA's expert team as they repair some of the world's biggest antennas.

In Brazil, lowered reservoirs plus an increase in population have stretched the nation's power supply thin. The solution: a floating electrical plant on the Atlantic Ocean made up of powerships hooked to a massive regasification unit. Once construction is completed, the ships will be able to generate, convert, and shoot enough electricity to power two million homes. But the checklist is long, and the weather is pushing back. It will take the hard-hat heroes all their muscle and engineering expertise to get the job done on time and on budget.

Mike pushes himself to the limit to work with an elite team of high ropes techs on fixes hundreds of feet in the air. Starting 45 stories up on the side of a skyscraper, then working and dangling on the edge of these high-flying fixes.

Mike joins the Assault Craft Unit 5, the U.S. Navy's team for Landing Craft Air Cushions (LCACs); LCACs carry heavy vehicles and troops onto beaches; Mike helps fly & fix an overhauled LCAC during a U.S. Marines beach assault training mission.

Nevada has over 40,000 abandoned mines posing dangers. Mike joins contractors for a week to secure five sites. Alongside biologists, they explore and document wildlife. Reaching these isolated mines requires barges, helicopters, and bulldozers.

Mike works with the U.S. Army in Germany inside the massive fix facility The MAK, Maintenance Activity Kaiserslautern, as teams repair over one hundred Bradley fighting vehicles, then embeds with troops in a massive two week long battle exercise.

With wildfire season ahead, Mike works with an aerial firefighting company as they fix and convert aircraft into firefighting machines, including the transformation of a 1960's C130 plane from aged military aircraft into a stateofthe art waterbomber.

At Cirque Du Soileil in Las Vegas, Mike embeds with the talented teams that maintain the amazing machines behind Cirque Du Soleil's stage shows.

Mike Davidson works with the teams at the enormous Port of Savannah to fix the machines that keep this place running. Boasting multiple massive cargo terminals, an impressive mega-railway system and some of the biggest ship-to-shore cranes on earth, the massive operation relies on its hard hat heroes to keep things running safely and smoothly. Major upgrades are taking the port’s container ship operations to a whole new level, and Mike’s on the team. He works with specialized crews to lift and move three, retired three-million-pound cranes to make room for even bigger ones, while digging in with crew on major repairs to other cranes, vehicles and machines that keep goods flowing. The shipments of essential goods flowing through the port never stops, and neither does the pressure to get these machines back up and running and this port functioning.

The teams at the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) stations and bases along the Northeastern seaboard battle daily to fix and maintain their fleet of ships, aircraft and life-saving gear. Mike embeds with them in the shops, on the docks, in the air and on the sea to discover what fixes it takes to keep us protected, defended and safe.

Mike works with the Army Corps of Engineers on a massive project to restore essential flow of fresh water to the Florida Everglades. He also joins scientists, python hunters and the Miccosuke Tribe to eliminate invasive species in these wetlands.

Mike works with repair and construction teams at Dreamworld, Australia's largest theme park, after a cyclone caused $4M in damage. They fix scream machines and finish a $50M expansion featuring the world's first triple switch rollercoaster.

Mike joins crews as they build the world's longest railway tunnel in the Alps, fixing gridlock through the infamous Brenner Pass by drilling, blasting and digging their way through the mountains while pushing through a challenging fault zone.

Mike in north eastern Australia, going on and under the water, into labs and onto construction projects working with specialized teams as they tackle the daunting challenge of saving dying coral on the incredible Great Barrier Reef.

In the Alps of Switzerland, Mike helps an elite team install a new cable (rope) system on an iconic mountain gondola line, helps fix the world's steepest cogwheel railway track and explores mountaintop family farms only accessible by cable cars.

In Florida, Mike tackles one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet - commercial diving. He helps a specialized team keep waterways safe; fixing construction site leaks, and removing dangerous structures...all while hurricane season is in full swing.

Mike is in Iceland, where teams harness the power of volcanoes to keep the geothermal energy flowing; they battle harsh weather to maintain and upgrade giant power systems, fixing miles of steam pipes and bringing a dead well back to life.

At Monster Jam, custom-built monster trucks roll, flip, and fly through the air. With the metal-bending beating these trucks endure, teams of specialized mechanics race against the clock to repair these engineering marvels intime for the next event.

In Grindavik, Iceland, crews repair earthquake fissures, build lava barriers and track magma, gases and ground movement while divers inspect a damaged harbor pier in a town shaped by ongoing eruptions.

In Southern California, crews rebuild after the 2025 wildfires, cutting firebreaks, repairing emergency water systems, hardening roads and power lines, and building fire-resistant homes before the next firestorm.