“Man Vs. Wild” — A man a plan a canal, Panama?
Some of my friends have been singing the praises of Discovery’s Man Vs. Wild for months. On Sunday, the network aired a marathon (which is arguably the most significant new trend in modern television programming) and I recorded a handful of episodes. As it turns out, my friends were correct (not that I ever doubted them) — Man Vs. Wild is totally awesome.
The series stars a guy named Bear Grylls, and yes “Bear Grylls” is the greatest name ever. The premise is simple enough: Bear is dropped (literally dropped!) into some sort of harsh condition and then must make his way back to civilization. As of this writing, I’ve seen two episodes. One featured him jumping off a helicopter in the middle of the Pacific, swimming to a deserted island, and then figuring out a way to get rescued. The second episode took place in the Rocky Mountains and involved him eating many worms and bugs as well riding through river rapids without a boat. More after the break…
Now, watching someone do things that should probably get them killed but surviving is entertaining enough, but what makes Man Vs. Wild great television is the way Bear narrates the series. He is not alone in his adventures as he travels with a camera crew (though a crew instructed not to help him unless he’s about to die). Because of this the show has a quality akin to a cooking show or something you might see on HGTV. Bear talks right to the camera and walks us through how he plans on building a fire or catching fish or running from a bear or making a batch of sun-screen out of coconut oil. It seems almost quaint. It also undercuts a lot of the drama. Sure, Bear is on a raft in the middle of the ocean and there are sharks circling looking for dinner and you fear for his safety, but then you think about it and realize that on the other side of this lens there has to be at least two more guys on ANOTHER raft (hell, they could be on the Queen Mary for all we know).
Also odd are frequent voice-overs where Bear tells us about a story he heard where a couple was camping and was attacked by a bear and got away or about a cub-scout who got stranded on an island but died because he was playing too close to the reef or about how fifteen billion people are stranded in the middle of the desert ever year without an adequate supply of water. It’s delightfully bleak if anyone anywhere ever actually thought they would find themselves in situations even a third as extreme.
And really that’s what makes Man Vs. Wild so compelling. It takes a completely unfathomable concept (surviving off nature in extreme conditions) and makes it seem like its the most common thing to happen to humans in the modern era. Afraid of getting mugged on the street or getting hit by a car? That’s nothing! What you really need to know is how you can catch fish when you don’t have a hook but do have some poisonous roots.
Man Vs. Wild airs on the Discovery Channel multiple times throughout the week (check your local listings… haha, always wanted to say that).
Tags: Discovery Channel
