I like both. I'm not concerned with Grylls' faking it. I like his aloof and live-wire attitude, although he does come across as a bit careless as a result of his being accompanied.
Les seems to not succeed enough that you get a real sense of survival situation, although I think he tends toward the dramatic with his emotions at times.
Ray Mears is refreshing, even though not current, as far as I know. He has such a pleasant gentle-giant sort of vibe, and likes to impart a spirituality, which I enjoy. Maybe I will find more of his stuff at his site.
There are simply not enough shows of this kind for me to thoroughly nit-pick. They are truly something to appreciate.
They all obviously love wilderness, and that is something everybody need to discover in themselves.

I would not want to seem so picayunish about Bear's show, except that he comes off as some sort of expert, and he mixes good advice with bad practices enough to mislead the less experienced into dangerous assumptions/actions.

Since he has a fair amount of intell about what he's doing and adequate backup, he seems too reckless. He's entertaining for those of us who know better, inspiring to those less knowledgable, to a fault. I don't mind his antics, but I would prefer he make more qualifying statements during his show.

Those crazy Scotsmen, I've not met one yet that isn't extreme in some manner...

I think that's the general consensus!

Well said; exactly my complaint.

You sure that's why she likes to watch? My wife didn't seem to mind watching Bear, and I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with survival (unless of the species variety).

I've long since stopped watching - for all the reasons listed in this thread and others.

I'm a big fan of Ray Mears as well. If you do a search for him on YouTube, you can find a bunch of his videos from the "Bushcraft Survival Series" and "Extreme Survival Series". I'd order the DVDs from his site, but they're not in my region code-wise.

I also like Les Stroud a lot and love Survivorman. Les gives out a lot of great information, and I respect the fact that when he screws up he'll show it and admit it. I also admire his ability to "go for the shot". He expends a lot of energy setting up cameras for a great shot only to have to go back and retrieve them afterward. Sure, it's an unnecessary expenditure of calories in a survival situation, but makes the show more enjoyable than if he were doing the whole thing with a hand-held camera. He'd probably do a lot better if he didn't have to deal with the cameras... LOL

As for Bear, I came down on him pretty hard in the beginning, but later some people here helped convince me of the fact that it's just a different type of show. I still think that a lot of what he shows is reckless, but the show is geared more about him pushing himself than anything else. When we started to hear the rumors that a lot of the show was staged, it didn't really surprise me that much.

In the end, if I were going to point someone to a show that contains great survival information I'd direct them to Ray Mears' or Les Stroud's work.