Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

General urban exploration stuff -- location specific stuff in the categories below
jammer_smith
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Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by jammer_smith »

So I am a bit of a sucker for Survival Shows, they are like my version of Say Yes to the Dress. I recognize that they are (mostly) schlocky garbage, but I still watch them, and often hate myself while watching. I've seen pretty much all of them. Here are my opinions:

Dude, You're Screwed: A neat idea, the survival doesn't seem too contrived, it seems fairly genuine, but the opening framing device of each episode, where a person is abducted and taken to some foreign country and yet have no idea what part of the world they are in, that is too unbelievable and obviously fake. Problem here is that the "Game" aspect of the show overcomes the survival aspect. The contestants don't seem to really "survive" as much as just endure without dying until their time is up.

Dual Survival: This show is pretty contrived. There are lots and lots of scenes that are played up for the cameras, scenes that are totally unrealistic, and scenes where a hunt goes a bit too well to be believed. This show really isn't that great, although the addition of Matt Graham, who is a genuine survivalist with real knowledge, gives the show a bit more credibility and also watchability, cause the guy is pretty nice and good presenter as well.

Man, Woman, Wild: This show is also incredibly contrived and even bit sexist at times. Well I mean sexist even considering the premise, which is that big tough military man teaches his pretty prim and proper british wife how to survive in the wild. When she does something right or learns a skill he practically pets her on top of the head like a puppy dog....ugh. In addition this is one of the shows where you get the sense they never REALLY sleep in the shelters they make, and they never REALLY go three days with only a squirrel and a handful of berries, they are definitely well fed and well housed off screen.

Extreme Survival: This show is almost not quite a survival show as much as an educational show. The host spends the first segment walking around in the episode's environment with normal basic camping supplies introducing us to the setting. Then there is often a little educational segment. And then at the end he shows a few sample skills of what you could do if you didn't have camping supplies due to getting lost while unprepared. Pretty neat I guess, and also some pretty good and genuine survival skills shown.

Man vs Wild: Well, what can I say about this one, I used to hate it. It's obviously contrived. The survival advice is terrible, a good way to end up sick and with broken bones, or dead. He eats off screen, he sleeps in hotels, we all probably know this. But a friend of mine once said "you know, he's not surviving in the wild, he is fighting the wild, it's not Man in Wild it's Man VS Wild." and that frame of mind helped me enjoy the show a bit more. It's not a survival show, it's a wilderness themed adventure/stunt show. And it frustrating cause Bear Grylls is a really charming and excellent personality and genuine bad ass, I would like to see him in a more legitimate setting.

Survivorman: This one really is the best, hands down. As far as I'm concerned if you want to ACTUALLY learn survival skills and see what it's really like out there, this is the only show. Because of that the show is sometimes bleak and sometimes dull. Les will sometimes go 5 days with no food at all. He will sometimes get caught in a monsoon and have to stay in his tent for three days watching it rain. He never kills big game, cause for a person with no supplies you just cannot take big game. He never does crazy stunts or climbs up cliffs or builds rafts to float down rapids....cause you can't actually do those things without a film and safety crew just off camera. He goes out alone, for 7 day, by himself. This also allows you to see the effects of isolation, and how having no human company can play with your head. This is the only actual survival show that has been made as far as I know.


There you go, those are my opinions of the survival series I've watched, and I actually think that is all of them. As far as I know there aren't any other, but if there are lemme know.

Honorable Mention: River Monsters- This isn't actually a survival show, it's ostensibly a fishing show that takes place mostly in very remote areas, but it's not even really that. I love this flipping show, it's really an adventure travelouge show, giving you local legends and culture and mystery and remote locales. It's good stuff.
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SubLunar
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RE: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by SubLunar »

I have seen survivorman and it's pretty damn good. I wouldn't waste my time watching a survival show if there wasn't an opportunity to learn something from it.
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by ropingk »

you forgot the one where the guy and the girl are naked?????? really who in there right mind would go into the woods naked ????????
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by jammer_smith »

I have actually never watched Naked and Afraid. It doesn't really fit the bill for me cause it's not a show about survival experts who know what they are doing like...teaching you, it's a show about amateur who may or may not have ever even gone hiking before being put in the woods to "figure it out".

Maybe a slight difference, but there it is.


There was another show with a guy who went naked and with no supplies at all onto an island for 60 days alone, self-filmed. But that wasn't an ongoing show, like a mini-series. Three one-hour episodes, and it was ok, it did a good job of showing how something as simple as cutting down a tree or making a stick pointy becomes really tough when you have no tools at all.
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by ropingk »

well it is for sure not a survival show in fact its kind of a stupid show again who wants to go into the woods naked????

the one with the man and wife was kind of ok but like you said she was not a expert

My hope is i never have to survivive in the owwds with nothing more than well nothing
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by PANIC! on the Titanic »

I am somewhat a fan of survival shows, moreso of honing my own survival skills. I think your rundown pretty much matches my own. If you want to end up dead at the bottom of a cliff, listen to bear grylls. If you want to learn what survival is really like, watch survivorman. No he's not fancy, full of stunts and shit. In a real survival situation, you have a ton of time. And if you do it right, you're doing something for most of that time (unless the weather is shitty, then you just sit there.) I watched an episode where he spent like 11 hours trying to get a fire with a bowdrill. Having extensive experience with the bowdrill myself, I know I woulda said fuck that shit 10 hours and 30 minutes ago, revealing what I need to work on more than a bowdrill: Patience. So the things you learn end up being more than just the tasks at hand. Survivorman is the most accurate I've seen, and I usually watch it when I'm man-crafting (like making shit out of animal pelts or making lengths of nettle-twine). My raccoon pelt tote bag with the face as the flap took roughly 5 survivor man episodes to sew together.

Naked and afraid is kind of a fun concept. Is it goofy and unnecessary? Yes it is. It's also incredibly difficult and tests the mental and physical boundaries of people. I once got inspired by that show and went out in the woods with 2 rules: I can only wear shoes and shorts, and I can bring 1 thing from home. No shirt, no tent, no sleeping bag. So I brought a length of paracord to hopefully use in a bowdrill. Well that night it got down into the 50s and holy shit that was cold. My mattress of cedar branches and dry grass got cold as fog set in and moistened everything. Bowdrill components are damn near impossible to find in a hardwood forest, so I didn't have a fire (until I did a late night raid on someone's getaway camper randomly out in the woods and found a lighter.) Sunrise couldn't come fast enough. Do that for 20 days? No thanks, I get the idea.

Dude your'e Screwed is a fun concept, and you can learn a few things by watching them. But as you said, they don't really need to survive, just wait out their time limit. Entertaining though.

Man woman wild? I watched 1 episode and never felt the need to do more.

So survivorman is where it's at I say. Les Stroud is a beast although he kind of disappointed me with his Bigfoot hunting expeditions. Judging by the fact that Finding Bigfoot is on season 7, I'd say they haven't found bigfoot. So that's pretty much just bullshit.
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

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PANIC! on the Titanic wrote:If you want to end up dead at the bottom of a cliff, listen to bear grylls.
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RE: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by RedRook »

I agree Naked and Afraid is stupid. Some of the most useful things to have in the woods are boots and clothes covering your legs and arms. I don't care if it is 100 degrees in the swamp, I want my skin covered. About the only thing higher priority would be some way to carry and purify water.

My wife just had on an episode where they're surrounded by about half a dozen Cotton Mouths at any given time. On top of that, some map comes up about sending them through some crocodile breeding pool. I think after that episode I'd turn down any opportunity to be on the show.
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by jammer_smith »

What REALLY drives me nuts in these shows is when they deal with caves.....ugh. There was an episode of dual survival where they wanted to get to the other side of a mountain, and there was a random cave in the side, so they decided to explore it for a shortcut through rather than around the mountain.

Ok....what! Very very few caves have multiple openings, and even fewer caves have openings at opposite ends like a tunnel. The idea is just stupid from the get-go, and of course they must know that, but they are hoping your average TV viewer doesnt know that. Ok so then they decide to explore these caves with.....torches.....that they make on the spot outside the cave. Then they find, somehow in the 5 minute of flickering half-light you'd get from a torch, their way through this cave to where they can see light , but on the otherside of a submerged portion of passage. So they ditch the torches and hold their breath and go for it, and swim out.....

Just no...no no no....infuriatingly no. That's a good way to get killed.
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RE: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

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The absolute worst outdoorsmanship I've seen is on that Hillbilly Blood show? It's not quite survival, but it has these two hillbillies that go in the woods for different reasons, but these guys are half way hopeless. At one point, they are by a river just before dark. Instead of moving from uphill where they can stay dry, they decide to tie a rope and swing themselves and their gear around a rock face. So one guy nearly gets hypothermia, because he just immediately falls in, and these guys are supposed to be expert woodsmen?

Then on another episode, the guy spends hours making a Siege Ballista out of a truck suspension. He has to sit still with this unmovable behemoth, and his friend ends up catching the only deer with a snare.

Its just insane. They have some knowledge, but then they have moments that make them look like prime candidates for the Darwin Awards.
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by jammer_smith »

Another thing I hate is when they build a raft or a complicated shelter in just a few hours. Nope, no way. Doing a shingled roof with leaves woven into a lattice....you're looking at a whole day endevor, and that is if everything was close at hand and where you needed to to be. Lashing together a raft that can withstand white water or the ocean with vines and roots in the morning and hitting the water in the afternoon.....no. It is obvious that in between the cuts there is a whole crew rushing in to help them assemble it, but of course your average TV viewer doesn't really have a good grasp of how long it takes to like...gather materials and build a structure by yourself with primitive lashings.
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by ropingk »

kind of like on the car shows where they do a 100% FRAME OFF
IN A GURAGE WITH NO LIGHTS AND NO LIFT UGH no
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RE: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by jammer_smith »

......that just shot like a rocket right out of my frame of reference.....but....Yes Exactly!
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RE: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by RedRook »

It's kind of funny how all of the formerly educational channels have switched to portraying fictional stories as if they are reality TV.

I want a show that just slowly works through the SAS Survival handbook. Simple skills, like using the brain when you tan leather, rules for drinking water, ways to avoid injury in rough terrain, instructions on making bows and flint knives, these are the types of things I wish were easily accessible on an education channel when I was a kid.
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Re: Best and Most Authentic Survival Shows

Post by Zeno »

I love survival shows. They do get entirely too cheesy though. Dual survival especially. If Im not stoned, it can often be so cringe inducing that I can't finish. It's just so much fun to adventure along from the comfort of your couch though.

I haven't seen naked and marooned mentioned yet. It's pretty good.
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