Survivorman would eat Man V. Wild for breakfast. MvW is fake and stupid. Survivorman is, simply put, some insane dude who really does risk his life every episode.
I can’t keep them straight. Which one is the former British Special Forces guy with all the contrived stuff and an obvious film crew following him? The one with the single guy who takes all his camera equipment with him is the one to beat.
I know nothing about wilderness survival, but half the stuff that Bear does seems like it would be idiotic in a survival situation. Since it came out that all of Man Vs. Wild was fake, it’s been nothing more than Discovery Channel’s version of Jackass to me. Hey, watch me try to ride a “wild” horse! Dare me to eat that dead Zebra?
Survivorman rocks. And really, in a survival situation, who would you want to be stranded with: A Canadian or some well-to-do British dude?
I love them both. Survivorman because he’s out there on his own. (I also love that he wrote the theme music and will break out a harmonica now and then.) Man vs Wild because Bear is just so fun to watch. “If I were to fall into this frigid water, it would mean certain death…Gotta make a swim for it!”
What are you asking. If you want to know which on is more fun to watch, and has the better personality, it’s Man vs. Wild. If you’re asking which guy is tougher, and which show is more realistic, it’s Survivorman.
I watch tv to be entertained, not to be bored, so I watch Man vs. Wild.
I agree w/ the last few comments. Man vs. Wild has much better production value, and I love watching him try to choke down nasty stuff, like sheep eyeballs, raw goat testicles, ran camel hump fat, and squeezing the liquid out of half-digested grass from some animal’s stomach. It’s a great show to watch on HD. I don’t really care if a good deal of it is staged; I always had assumed that anyway.
I actually like the lack of production value in Survivorman. I love seeing how he’s set up the cameras and I’m always thinking about how he’s gotten certain shots all on his own.
It’s funny to watch Bear make faces when he eats gross stuff, but watching Wes starve usually makes me squirm more.
The problem with Man vs. Wild (thanks Steve) is that when he covered areas I’m familiar with he was just doing amazingly stupid things. They weren’t about survival at all. Sorry, but you don’t blow up your pants to swim a lake you could easily and safely walk around. You don’t jump into an unknown river with unknown rapids to make rapid progress in the Rockies or High Sierras. It’s not just contrived the guy is an idiot.
I don’t think he’s trying to show exactly what you would do if you were him, I think he’s just showing a bunch of different techniques that could be used if the circumstances required it. In other words, nobody is going to think after being stuck on the wrong side of a lake, “Bear blew up his pants in this situation so I guess I better do the same,” but there’s a chance that someone who has no possible way around a body of water might think, “I seem to remember on one of his shows Bear blowing up his pants to use as flotation, maybe that will work.”
Bear Grylls is about shock value. Yes, he gives tips on survival by putting himself in dumb situations intentionally, and then spends the night with the production crew in the Motel 6 (which he admitted on Letterman last week), but when you edit the film together, it looks pretty good. Most people don’t care that he’s half fake.
I’m a Survivorman fan myself, but I’m also a big-time backpacker, so I like Les’ technique and advice. I’m more intrigued that he is producing the film himself and does it without any help (except for a few random items, like his multi-tool). He’s actually quoted often in Backpacker magazine and occasionally does work with the AHS.
And Susan, I saw a special last week in which Les showed a “not quite as edited as most shows” show, and it did show him having to set up a camera, then walk away, then come back toward the camera in order to get the shot. He also mentioned a lot during that episode how difficult it is to have to film yourself doing things from several different angles and how much time it takes to set everything up. I think they released that one episode on the heels of Bear’s admission a few months ago that he wasn’t really surviving to the extent that Les was, so Les produced a show that illustrated more of the actual production that goes on, and that he’s not a fake in any way. Cool show.
I’m bummed I missed that episode. I always think about when it shows him fording streams or walking way off in the distance, and he hasn’t eaten in days, that he’s had to come back from way out there to get the camera before he actually moves on.
I am a avid backpacker with years of survival experience. The idiotic things that Les does on survivor man could get you killed. you don’t waste time building traps that don’t work or shelters that don’t protect you from the elements. Bear does take unrealistic risks jumping off of cliffs and climbing high trees, but the information is a lot more accurate than on survivor man.So those of you who love survivor man so much, please go out and test his techniques, and say hello to search and rescue for me!
I can’t say I watch either too much. But techniques on Survivorman I saw in areas I’ve done a lot of backcountry in didn’t seem too bad in the least. Whereas MvW were all completely asinine as I saw him.
What techniques were so bad?
On the other hand I’ve long thought that ‘survival’ in the US and Canada is kind of easy beyond that insane trip way up north by Survivorman.
Adam, I’m with Clark – I’ve seen Les catch rabbits, squirrels, scorpions, lizards, and other animals in his traps. You make it sound like he fails every time. He doesn’t.
And his shelters are actually quite good. He made one in Nova Scotia that kept him warm all night long during a snowstorm that I found quite impressive given the limited resources he had. He’s also made some impressive lean-tos by cross-hatching boughs and moss. Bear’s version of making a shelter is, as mentioned above, usually a bit more assinine and/or obnoxious.
I’m also an avid (ultra-light, Ray Jardine style) backpacker and a big fan of both shows. I’m not sure if you’ve sampled all the episodes out there.
Did he do an episode backcountry in Nova Scotia!?!?
Wow. For the record Nova Scotia isn’t that hard to do back country in and you are always pretty close to a road. All the backcountry is for the most part owned by logging companies. The big problem is that it’s often damp there. Very damp. Lots of freezing rain. (March is the worst since at least in January and February it’s cold enough to be dry most of the time) Then there are lots of bogs. But I really want to go back and do some ice climbing on the Bay of Fundy and some hiking in the summer.
Interestingly in scouts we had a camp trip where we had to build our own shelters and what not. The boughs and moss work very well there. There’s a lot of moss in Nova Scotia.
Now I really want to see it.
For my backcountry (well before I had kids – I’m out of shape now) I’d carry an ultra-lightweight pack (by It’s a Cold Cold World since it had ice axe holders) with an emergency space blanket and a bivvy bag. I always carried two cliff bars and a water filter. (Although the later got destroyed by my bother during an extended bivvy on the north face of the Grand Teton in a lightning storm when my brother didn’t prefilter the dirty water leading to a bit of an adventure). Anyway, it works great. I got impaled once in the Grand Canyon by some poisonous plant and had to do a bivvy in the snow near the rim in January and it’s really no problem.
Survival is typically much easier than one would suspect.
i watched an episode of survivorman yesterday where i saw him drink directly from a river in the rain-forest! the shocking thing about it was that he had the resources to boil it and DIDN’T! AND, then spent 5 hours fishing with a hook made from a pop can and didn’t catch anything. he didn’t try making a fish trap, or setting up bait overnight and checking it in the morning, which could have given better results.Les also had a blowgun at his disposal!I guess Les thought that hunting with a blowgun would be too easy. seriously, some of the information Les gives is right on the money, but he gives enough bad information to kill you; and that is too much in my opinion. at least the information Bear provides can help your situation, not make it worse. he may take unnecessary risks or spend a night in a hotel, but the information can save your life. the information that Les gives can be good in many areas of survival, but the one piece of bad info he gives you can kill you!
Clark, don’t be an idiot and say that survival is easy. true survival is scary and intimidating, not like the back yard adventures you say you’ve been on. stop trying to make everyone think your some bad-ass, because anyone who has been through a true survival situation would gloat that it was easy. we know your a fake!
Adam, in the US unless something has happened to you (hyperthermia, broken leg, etc.) then yeah, I’m sticking with survival is pretty damn easy.
As for being a fake. I don’t know how to reply to that. I didn’t mean to be bragging – especially because I don’t think it’s a big deal. How can it be bragging when my whole point is that they are making something easy look hard? The would entail that what I’ve done is no big deal as well. I wasn’t gloating merely questioning the shows. (Based purely what they’ve done in areas I’ve camped, hiked, climbed and backcountry skiied in)
Survivorman I find a lot better since he doesn’t use a camera crew and it makes me feel more into the wild, like i’m actually expierencing where he is, but man vs wild is a good show and I would watch that too, so why not just watch both since both of them aren’t on at the same time. :] Matters what people would prefer :]
Surviorman gives more information that you could use to survive, MvW gives you little to none. Being in the Canadian Army my survival training has been fairly extensive and I must say for the most part Les gives information that can save you. Yes he does waste time/energy walking back and forth between cameras/making traps. The traps are great information because if you are trapped in the wild there is no “Time Limit” until someone magically flies in and picks you up, so those hours making the traps over the space of 2/3 days could catch a lot of food. Enough to keep you fed for a week while you keep moving.
Water in Amazonian rivers is clean to drink as long as you filter it with a shirt/cloth. It is not stagnant enough to require boiling. Most river water isn’t stagnant enough, creek water is.
Bear will do nothing for you but give you extreme last ditch efforts that are more likely to kill you/get you hurt than save you. Les gives you information that could keep you alive. MvW is for entertainment, Survivorman is for education.
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Survivorman would eat Man V. Wild for breakfast. MvW is fake and stupid. Survivorman is, simply put, some insane dude who really does risk his life every episode.
Except that Man vs. Wild is actually fun to watch. Survivorman is a weird dude and it’s kinda boring.
I can’t keep them straight. Which one is the former British Special Forces guy with all the contrived stuff and an obvious film crew following him? The one with the single guy who takes all his camera equipment with him is the one to beat.
Clark, the latter is Survivorman. The contrived one is MvW, and is STUPID.
I know nothing about wilderness survival, but half the stuff that Bear does seems like it would be idiotic in a survival situation. Since it came out that all of Man Vs. Wild was fake, it’s been nothing more than Discovery Channel’s version of Jackass to me. Hey, watch me try to ride a “wild” horse! Dare me to eat that dead Zebra?
Survivorman rocks. And really, in a survival situation, who would you want to be stranded with: A Canadian or some well-to-do British dude?
I love them both. Survivorman because he’s out there on his own. (I also love that he wrote the theme music and will break out a harmonica now and then.) Man vs Wild because Bear is just so fun to watch. “If I were to fall into this frigid water, it would mean certain death…Gotta make a swim for it!”
But Survivorman wins because it’s more real.
What are you asking. If you want to know which on is more fun to watch, and has the better personality, it’s Man vs. Wild. If you’re asking which guy is tougher, and which show is more realistic, it’s Survivorman.
I watch tv to be entertained, not to be bored, so I watch Man vs. Wild.
jjohnsen – my thoughts exactly.
I agree w/ the last few comments. Man vs. Wild has much better production value, and I love watching him try to choke down nasty stuff, like sheep eyeballs, raw goat testicles, ran camel hump fat, and squeezing the liquid out of half-digested grass from some animal’s stomach. It’s a great show to watch on HD. I don’t really care if a good deal of it is staged; I always had assumed that anyway.
Survivorman is hardcore, but a bit boring.
I actually like the lack of production value in Survivorman. I love seeing how he’s set up the cameras and I’m always thinking about how he’s gotten certain shots all on his own.
It’s funny to watch Bear make faces when he eats gross stuff, but watching Wes starve usually makes me squirm more.
The problem with Man vs. Wild (thanks Steve) is that when he covered areas I’m familiar with he was just doing amazingly stupid things. They weren’t about survival at all. Sorry, but you don’t blow up your pants to swim a lake you could easily and safely walk around. You don’t jump into an unknown river with unknown rapids to make rapid progress in the Rockies or High Sierras. It’s not just contrived the guy is an idiot.
blow up your pants to swim a lake
Cool.
walk around
Boring.
I don’t think he’s trying to show exactly what you would do if you were him, I think he’s just showing a bunch of different techniques that could be used if the circumstances required it. In other words, nobody is going to think after being stuck on the wrong side of a lake, “Bear blew up his pants in this situation so I guess I better do the same,” but there’s a chance that someone who has no possible way around a body of water might think, “I seem to remember on one of his shows Bear blowing up his pants to use as flotation, maybe that will work.”
Yeah. (a) if you need a flotation device the probability you could make your pants into a reliable one is pretty slim. And (b) why not look for logs?
His suggestions are typically asinine. (Like try to ride a wild horse you found — WHAT????)
Bear Grylls is about shock value. Yes, he gives tips on survival by putting himself in dumb situations intentionally, and then spends the night with the production crew in the Motel 6 (which he admitted on Letterman last week), but when you edit the film together, it looks pretty good. Most people don’t care that he’s half fake.
I’m a Survivorman fan myself, but I’m also a big-time backpacker, so I like Les’ technique and advice. I’m more intrigued that he is producing the film himself and does it without any help (except for a few random items, like his multi-tool). He’s actually quoted often in Backpacker magazine and occasionally does work with the AHS.
And Susan, I saw a special last week in which Les showed a “not quite as edited as most shows” show, and it did show him having to set up a camera, then walk away, then come back toward the camera in order to get the shot. He also mentioned a lot during that episode how difficult it is to have to film yourself doing things from several different angles and how much time it takes to set everything up. I think they released that one episode on the heels of Bear’s admission a few months ago that he wasn’t really surviving to the extent that Les was, so Les produced a show that illustrated more of the actual production that goes on, and that he’s not a fake in any way. Cool show.
I’m bummed I missed that episode. I always think about when it shows him fording streams or walking way off in the distance, and he hasn’t eaten in days, that he’s had to come back from way out there to get the camera before he actually moves on.
I am a avid backpacker with years of survival experience. The idiotic things that Les does on survivor man could get you killed. you don’t waste time building traps that don’t work or shelters that don’t protect you from the elements. Bear does take unrealistic risks jumping off of cliffs and climbing high trees, but the information is a lot more accurate than on survivor man.So those of you who love survivor man so much, please go out and test his techniques, and say hello to search and rescue for me!
Will do.
I can’t say I watch either too much. But techniques on Survivorman I saw in areas I’ve done a lot of backcountry in didn’t seem too bad in the least. Whereas MvW were all completely asinine as I saw him.
What techniques were so bad?
On the other hand I’ve long thought that ‘survival’ in the US and Canada is kind of easy beyond that insane trip way up north by Survivorman.
Adam, I’m with Clark – I’ve seen Les catch rabbits, squirrels, scorpions, lizards, and other animals in his traps. You make it sound like he fails every time. He doesn’t.
And his shelters are actually quite good. He made one in Nova Scotia that kept him warm all night long during a snowstorm that I found quite impressive given the limited resources he had. He’s also made some impressive lean-tos by cross-hatching boughs and moss. Bear’s version of making a shelter is, as mentioned above, usually a bit more assinine and/or obnoxious.
I’m also an avid (ultra-light, Ray Jardine style) backpacker and a big fan of both shows. I’m not sure if you’ve sampled all the episodes out there.
Did he do an episode backcountry in Nova Scotia!?!?
Wow. For the record Nova Scotia isn’t that hard to do back country in and you are always pretty close to a road. All the backcountry is for the most part owned by logging companies. The big problem is that it’s often damp there. Very damp. Lots of freezing rain. (March is the worst since at least in January and February it’s cold enough to be dry most of the time) Then there are lots of bogs. But I really want to go back and do some ice climbing on the Bay of Fundy and some hiking in the summer.
Interestingly in scouts we had a camp trip where we had to build our own shelters and what not. The boughs and moss work very well there. There’s a lot of moss in Nova Scotia.
Now I really want to see it.
For my backcountry (well before I had kids – I’m out of shape now) I’d carry an ultra-lightweight pack (by It’s a Cold Cold World since it had ice axe holders) with an emergency space blanket and a bivvy bag. I always carried two cliff bars and a water filter. (Although the later got destroyed by my bother during an extended bivvy on the north face of the Grand Teton in a lightning storm when my brother didn’t prefilter the dirty water leading to a bit of an adventure). Anyway, it works great. I got impaled once in the Grand Canyon by some poisonous plant and had to do a bivvy in the snow near the rim in January and it’s really no problem.
Survival is typically much easier than one would suspect.
Clark, quit making up stories to impress us.
Steve, if I wanted to impress I’d tell my brother’s stories. He’s got a lot more wild ones than I.
i watched an episode of survivorman yesterday where i saw him drink directly from a river in the rain-forest! the shocking thing about it was that he had the resources to boil it and DIDN’T! AND, then spent 5 hours fishing with a hook made from a pop can and didn’t catch anything. he didn’t try making a fish trap, or setting up bait overnight and checking it in the morning, which could have given better results.Les also had a blowgun at his disposal!I guess Les thought that hunting with a blowgun would be too easy. seriously, some of the information Les gives is right on the money, but he gives enough bad information to kill you; and that is too much in my opinion. at least the information Bear provides can help your situation, not make it worse. he may take unnecessary risks or spend a night in a hotel, but the information can save your life. the information that Les gives can be good in many areas of survival, but the one piece of bad info he gives you can kill you!
Clark, don’t be an idiot and say that survival is easy. true survival is scary and intimidating, not like the back yard adventures you say you’ve been on. stop trying to make everyone think your some bad-ass, because anyone who has been through a true survival situation would gloat that it was easy. we know your a fake!
Adam, in the US unless something has happened to you (hyperthermia, broken leg, etc.) then yeah, I’m sticking with survival is pretty damn easy.
As for being a fake. I don’t know how to reply to that. I didn’t mean to be bragging – especially because I don’t think it’s a big deal. How can it be bragging when my whole point is that they are making something easy look hard? The would entail that what I’ve done is no big deal as well. I wasn’t gloating merely questioning the shows. (Based purely what they’ve done in areas I’ve camped, hiked, climbed and backcountry skiied in)
Survivorman I find a lot better since he doesn’t use a camera crew and it makes me feel more into the wild, like i’m actually expierencing where he is, but man vs wild is a good show and I would watch that too, so why not just watch both since both of them aren’t on at the same time. :] Matters what people would prefer :]
Surviorman gives more information that you could use to survive, MvW gives you little to none. Being in the Canadian Army my survival training has been fairly extensive and I must say for the most part Les gives information that can save you. Yes he does waste time/energy walking back and forth between cameras/making traps. The traps are great information because if you are trapped in the wild there is no “Time Limit” until someone magically flies in and picks you up, so those hours making the traps over the space of 2/3 days could catch a lot of food. Enough to keep you fed for a week while you keep moving.
Water in Amazonian rivers is clean to drink as long as you filter it with a shirt/cloth. It is not stagnant enough to require boiling. Most river water isn’t stagnant enough, creek water is.
Bear will do nothing for you but give you extreme last ditch efforts that are more likely to kill you/get you hurt than save you. Les gives you information that could keep you alive. MvW is for entertainment, Survivorman is for education.