On Wednesday, March 30, Spike TV and executive producer Thom Beers (Emmy Award-winning "Deadliest Catch," "Ice Road Truckers," "Black Gold" "Ax Men") shines his light on the dirtiest and one of the most dangerous energy hunts with a new series called "Coal."

The Spike series follows CEO Mike Crowder and his Cobalt Coal Corporation over a three-month period between November 2010 and January 2011.

Crowder's men mine a metallurgical kind of coal used in steelmaking inside of West Virginia’s McDowell County.  Beers' camera crew take viewers down into the depths of the earth for an unprecedented look at coal mining.

Spike TV will premiere the 10 episode, one-hour series "Coal" starting Wednesday, March 30. The series will be executive produced by Beers’ Original Productions, a FremantleMedia Company.  

Cobalt's Crowder and Roberts face pressure to keep the mine up and running, but also to keep their workers safe in a highly combustible environment where one wrong move could prove deadly.

The action takes place in the mountains of Appalachia. Every aspect of the job will be covered, from the dangers behind the super-charged mining process, to the daily dangers of working in the earth’s crust in a traditional underground mine and the lengths to which the mine goes in order to ensure worker safety to the sense of accomplishment and pride in finally bringing coal to the surface.

Beers will also appear with members of his production team at the 2011 NAB Show in a session titled "Testosterone TV: Behind the Scenes with Original Productions."

Broadcasting & Cable executive editor Melissa Grego will moderate the Super Session panel discussion, which will take place Monday, April 11 at 1:00 pm. The 2011 NAB Show takes place April 9-14 in Las Vegas.

Original Productions currently has 14 series in production on eight domestic television networks. Beers will be joined on the panel by Philip Segal, president and executive producer of Original Productions; Jeff Conroy, vice president of programming and executive producer; and series co-executive producers, Sarah Whalen and Gayle Gilman.

Monsters and Critics spoke to Thom Beers while he was en route to West Virginia last week. 

Monsters and Critics: Talk about Mike Crowder, the CEO of Cobalt how you found him, how you were able to talk him in to this?

Thom Beers:  Well I got smart. It was a mutually beneficial situation. Mike has a very small coal company and it's publicly traded in Canada. And so I think that there are two things, one was I need to have a mine that had personal stakes in it.

I seriously needed to have somebody who had their own money, their own skin in the game. I wasn't looking for a great big corporate coal mine because obviously the bigger the coal mine, the bigger the operations, the less heart and soul it has.

I needed somebody that really, really lived and died by that mine and Mike is a little underfunded and these guys, they got to get the coal out every week or they don't make payroll.  So that was what I was looking for.

And so that's what sits along. And Crowder on the other hand, I think he really saw an opportunity here, gets very depressed for his mine and for his attempts and he's looking for investors and he thought that if he could play this right and obviously because of our reputation and our ability to deliver on our promise to... We don't do exposes, we celebrate the American working man. So it seemed to be a perfect fit.

M&C: When you met the guys, Wildman Robert and Lonnie Sr. and Lonnie Jr. - were they apprehensive or leery at first? 

Thom Beers: Are you kidding me? They looked at all of us like we were a bunch of dumbasses. Now but they key to it is this, is the fact that we, all of our crew, had to basically go to... We literally took the same training as any other coal rookie. So they took 80 hours of training to become rookie miners.

So once you're in with that... but these guys are incredibly protective. They were like looking at us and it was fabulous. We know what we need and we're in these guy's ears all the time, like everytime a miner asks a questions, 'what are you doing, what are you doing if I were' and 'You just asked me that 10 minutes ago...'  It's like that kind of stuff, it's like, 'Didn't you just ask me that 5 minutes ago?'...'Yes, I did. But you've got to keep telling me what you're doing, I don't want this whole show... to be a silent movie with tons of narration. I want you to tell me what you're doing so I don't ask this.'

So, we had train them but at the same time, they looked out for our guys. I mean everytime they go, they'd be looking at you, because if you get near the tunnel, man, you're getting in that dark, you'd get lost in a hurry. So they took care of us. It was kind of mutually beneficial as well.

And if you think about it, then we all want in one small way to prove that we existed and we all want to be memorialized a little bit, with who we are and what we do. So that was kind of a key to it.  I mean I don't know about you, but I just like to know that sometime in my life I was relevant. So this offers an opportunity to a common working man who normally would never have that chance and nobody would ever know they existed.

M&C: Was the poverty of the region, did it set you back a little bit?

Thom Beers:  Really. Because I'll tell you what, I had the poorest the places I've been always seems to have the biggest heart and more generosity in spirit and all that stuff, it's really true.

It's converse. I mean, I swear, you get to a place that's really rich, they're cold. You get to the poorest places, the people are warm, they're generous. And no I didn't have an issue with it. And these are working men. We didn't do a series on people on welfare or disability.

M&C: Right, of course. It's just very unusual, it's like there's certain parts of the United States that are very clannish, closed...

Thom Beers: In West Virginia, they said the mountains do two things. The mountains they protect people but they also close people off. So yeah there is a little bit of that, but these people are... They embraced us, they let us in... I wanted this story to be told. And I think converse to the terrible effect of a documentary like The Wild & Wonderful Whites of West Virginia - which did an amazing damage to the psyche of the people of West Virginia, this is something they hope will be uplifting.

They've been at the screenings for two nights. It's just been nothing but just rave reviews and people just couldn't believe what they saw. People that had families, three generations working at coal mines. This woman came to me and said, my dad, my husband and I've seen what the inside of the coal mine in 50 years.

M&C: The confines, 33 inches. I mean how far did you personally get into the mine?

Thom Beers: On this mine, I didn't get in at all. I didn't get the time to spend 80 hours to train. So that just didn't work out.  I've got 13 series, but I've been in plenty of coal mines and we try to find the other coal mines. So we met with the guys, but I never got in the hole...

M&C: A fan of your show used Twitter to contact me and they wanted to ask you a question. They wanted to know what Coal had in common with Deadliest Catch?

Thom Beers: Oh, Gosh. You know if you think about it, it's the same kind that... We shoot a lot of Deadliest Catch at night. I mean, it's just a lot like dramatic and more interesting.

And if you look at that hole, the hole that you're in, it has that same kind of thing. It's a dark, dark space. It can just kill you in a heartbeat.  It's the same kind of thing.

You have these guys, you go out into the great unknown, and that's the same thing as Deadliest Catch. And eventually, it's just as compelling with limited light and the machines and coral... Its just beautiful inside, filmically stunning. All those have that things in common. Again, guys being thrown into a very, very dangerous situation and taking a gamble for a better life.

M&C What are some of the Coal tales like?

Thom Beers: You know, this great story. It evolves as the show goes on. We have a hard time finding a guy to operate the miner at night. And if you saw these episodes...  he's is a lovely guy. But they've got a miner. We have one of the best miners in West Virginia, but he is up on top and he is working, basically he is the top man. Why? Because he was miner operator for years, but last year his daughter's husband was killed in a mine accident, and he promised his daughter he would never go back into the hole again.

That's the kind of stuff that we come into. Those are great stories.

M&C: You have talked at length the TCA about how a different breed of crew and cameramen work for you. If you could talk about that?

Thom Beers: Well, yeah... They're special... They are all, we all have that great sense of wanderlust...They love the adventure. They are also something else, they're not in a real structured environment. So they are allowed to spread their wings. These guys in essence are cameramen, they're producers, they're directors. I mean, they're everything. So that's kinda cool.

M&C: How did they find you? Did they contact you directly? What, were they saying, 'I'm an adrenalin junkie?'

Thom Beers:  These guys have worked for this for years. If you think about it. These are guys that broke in with us on Deadliest Catch and then they went to Black Gold. They've worked in coal mines and they've worked everywhere. So they come to us over the years. They started as assistant and all that stuff. We have slowly broken them in and taught them this trade. And I think they're just a different breed of people.

M&C: You also have a show going to IFC...

Thom Beers: Whisker Wars. Yeah.

M&C: What is that?

Thom Beers: Competitive beard growers. [laughter] I am not kidding you; its hilarious. Group of men from all over the country and its amazing you find all these beardies. I mean, it's a huge, its kind of huge group of people. And they are young, old, all walks of life and they have all a lot, something in common, but it's just such a kick out of these guys. That's how it is. A bunch of guys who are basically competing against each other to have the greatest bread grown in the world.

M&C: That's fascinating.

Thom Beers: It's the eccentricities of it, the strange... The unusual-ness of it. Its guys who really really believe in their heart and soul and they have the heart of competitors. They're athletes but they just, you know, they grow beards.