Thursday, November 15, 2007

Man Vs. Wild Returns!

Watching Sportscenter this morning, I perked up when a commercial came on with the one and only voice of Bear Grylls, the wild outdoorsman and star of show Man Vs. Wild. Apparently a new season of the show is beginning tomorrow night on the Discovery Channel. It's unfortunate that the show will be airing on Friday nights but there will of course be reruns at more convenient times.

If you have not seen this television program, tune in. A madman named Bear Grylls purposely gets dropped off in the middle of various outdoor areas (with only a bottle of water, a flint, and a knife), and walks viewers through the steps in order to find yourself to safety. It could save your life the next time you get stranded in a rainforest, desert, glacier, volcano, etc. (basically, day-to-day situations). Ok, so maybe you will never need to know that urinating on your tee-shirt and wrapping it around your head will cool you down when lost in the Mojave Desert. However, it is quite entertaining to watch a guy actually do it on TV.

You may ask, "Who is filming him do all of this?"...well, the camera crew stays by his side, but they come prepared with their own food and necessities and at no point do they help Bear Grylls (unless he's in a really bad way). There was some speculation into how "real" the show was, and rumors that some of the events on the show were staged. Cut the guy a break!! He's obviously got brass balls...I mean, his name is Bear freakin' Grylls! Staged or not...you can't fake squeezing water into your mouth out of a giant mound of rhino feces.

Support for the show aside, I'm glad that the show sparked controversy over its genuity. I think that's going to fuel Grylls' fire and blow people away in the new season.



2 comments:

David Oblas said...

that's a great show!! The one time he showed us how to make water in the desert... although I don't remember how he did it... I think it involved a big hole, a can, a piece of plastic, and a rock... I wanna know where he got the plastic.

Anonymous said...

This show isn't about survival at all. If it was, they'd show a lady in 100 degree heat with 80 percent humidity in the middle of a crowded public park removing her bra through her shirt sleeve. Now that's a necessary skill. I challenge any man to wear an elastic and wire contraption strapped around his torso under those conditions. Throw in wearing some hosiery, too. Now that would be a survival show!