Carrier (2005) PBS

Carrier, Ep. 3: Super Secrets

Episode 3: "Super Secrets"

The ship’s location and itinerary are classified. Details of how the nuclear reactor works are top secret. Many aspects of life on a nuclear aircraft carrier are hush-hush. Dating and sex aboard ship are strictly forbidden, but according to one sailor, with 5,000 people on board, relationships are “inevitable,” resulting in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that applies to relationships as well as sexual orientation. When the Nimitz pulls into Hong Kong for a four-day port call, a scandal dramatically alters the lives of two sailors. As the ship departs, the crew learns their itinerary has changed. The captain announces that they are heading for Korea, but the crew can’t share this information with their families back home ... because it’s a secret.



Chapter 1: "Dirty Laundry" (13:17)

“What happens out to sea stays out to sea.”

Chapter 2: "The Reactor Dept." (11:45)

The ship is nuclear powered, but that isn’t the only type of reaction that goes on below deck.

Chapter 3: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (9:50)

Being gay or lesbian in the Navy means giving up certain freedoms.

Chapter 4: "Women and Men at Sea" (6:28)

Before the ship pulls into port at Hong Kong, sailors get a warning about what can go wrong on land.

Chapter 5: "Hong Kong" (15:40)

The city provides a welcome break for most and opportunity for trouble for others.

CARRIER, a 10-part series filmed aboard the USS Nimitz, is a character-driven immersion in the high- stakes world of a nuclear aircraft carrier. The episodes follow a core group of characters as they navigate their jobs, families, faith, patriotism, love, the rites of passage and the war on terror. An Emmy Award-winning the television series is about a six-month deployment of a United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in 2005 from the United States to the Middle East and back.

Making the film CARRIER required 17 filmmakers to take a six-month journey aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz during its deployment to the Gulf in support of the Iraq War. They disembarked from Coronado, California on May 7, 2005 and returned there November 8, 2005 with stops at Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Guam, Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain and Perth, Australia.



The trip proved an evolution for the film crew who spent the early weeks trying to find their place while the 5,000 sailors and Marines around them were too busy to take notice. Eventually, the film crew discerned the ebb and flow of life on a carrier, and began to feel more at home on board. The ship’s crew not only accepted them but also took a vested interest in the project, making suggestions on the best places to film and providing access to missions that helped capture the full experience of the deployment.



Jammed into their own staterooms, the crew that once felt apart now felt kinship as they shared both trepidation and jubliation awaiting the safe return of the carrier’s jet fighters. When the huge emotional surge of seeing home hit in November, the filmmakers knew how the Nimitz crew must feel. But back on land, their own mission of editing and production continued for nearly three more years before the film CARRIER docked at PBS on April 27, 2008.