Did anyone see the Ultimate survivor show on discover?
I just finished watching it with my 13 year old son and even he couldn't help pointing out all of the bad advice this show dished out as survival info. One of the worst was advising using your backpack as a flotation device, for riding rapids in an ice cold river, rather than walking (can anyone say hypothermia), let alone the obvious danger of the act itself. I couldn't help but notice that even after the so called survival expert set the rules about how the camera crew was not to help in any way he managed to get ahold of a flotation vest which he tried to hide under his shirt. This guy gave out some very dangerous advice which sadly some people will try to use in an already bad situation. At least Les Stroud manages to show some actual survival techniques along with the melodrama. Man this show was a major dissapointment, especialy when you have people like Doug Ritter out there really working to educate people.
sorry for the long rant but garbage like this could get someone hurt.
also did anyone see the pile of embers this guy suposedly got with a hand drill (more like a blowtorch with a little editing)

I watched. There was some good stuff, and the things you pointed out. Shootin' the rapids sans boat looked a tad dangerous to me, and while he no doubt knows his stuff, rappelling with 550 paracord or jumping off 70-ft cliff into unknown water (and rocks) are one of those "don't try this at home kids."

I will say, he's got an interesting "r?sum?." From bio on his website : climbed Mt. Everest at age 23; served 3 years in British SAS; crossed Artic Ocean in small, open inflatable (why would you want to do that? <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />), broke his back in a freefall parachute accident in Africa.

Dan

I missed the show unfortunately, but there is one thing you have to think about in just about any television program where a dangerous element is involved and in which the person isn't producing (funding) the piece themselves, and that thing is insurance. He may have had to wear the floatation vest because of that. However, it would have been better to make mention of such a thing if that were indeed the case rather than try and hide it altogether.

I also don't know the circumstances he had in mind that made using his backpack as a floatation device, but from what I've seen on more than one show is that it is taught at a lot of different special forces schools around the world. In any case, at some point you may find yourself in a situation where you have to cross a deep body of water with your gear, and it's better if the pack floats and you can use it as an aid rather than let it be the thing that drags you down. I will have to admit that In the context you mention him using this in, icy water and rapids, it sounds a bit rediculous when it would obviously be better to find a safer place to cross. If he was only doing this to cover distance more quickly than walking, I'd say he was out of his mind.

Anyway, I didn't see the show, but I just checked the schedule and it's on again this evening (03/12/06) at 7:00 pm. EST. I'll make sure to watch, and then join in on the blasting. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Then again, though I've trained, I'm betting I have a heck of a lot less time doing so than he has.

I agree. The show was somehow to be a personal challenge for himself, and at the same time cover survival strategy. I think he should put forth his information more for a person needing escape and evasion skills rather than just survival skills. I thought it very odd that he would advise children to walk out rather than staying until found, for instance. His show has potential, but he needs to decide upon what exact audience he is appealing to.

I too thought this show was a little high risk for teaching survival. I hope to see the other episodes, since this was the pilot episode just for entertainment value. although I might jump a 70 foot cliff if a bear was forcing me to do so. (but only if my director/cameraman checked the depth prior to me jumping.And I don't think I would jump with a floatation device like a daypack strapped to my back)

When I see Everest AND SAS in the same resume, I keep walking.

After watching a couple of Les Stroud's episodes, this one with Bear Grylls was like watching everything you shouldn't do.

Oh well, at least there was some entertainment value.

I was wondering if I was the only one that noticed the vest under his sweatshirt when he was in the water.

Also notice he had on a Breitling watch with a PLB built in? ONly $4500 when I looking at them.

I didn't like the show at all. Too many "don't do this at home" moments.

Les could whip him in a survival situation.

Just watched the "ultimate moronathon" last night; this show is a grand selection of misinformation, from throwing one's self into a river, to throwing river rocks in a fire. Oh well, some are raised by the TV and some will perish via the same........

Yep, watched the whole gruling hour. I think about the only thing he did right was build the debris hut...after that it was one mistake after another...walking at night, actually half running to get away from the unconfirmed bear...lucky the camera man was there with a light, jumping off the cliff again...some unseen bear was the enemy here...and I couldn't belive how fast he was moving down that burn area..talk about an injury waiting to happen. Just one wrong thing after another.

Yeah...this show is purely enterainment...Les has him beat hands down.

Well I managed to catch the show, and you definitely nailed it, Bladerunner. Good Call.

It seemed more like "Ultimate Survivor" was a show about this guys bravado than making one's way through a survival situation.

Jumping in an icy river with rapids to save time... What was on this guy's mind? Sure he may have covered a decent amount of distance faster than if he had walked, but that water probably sucked a lot of body heat out of him and he mentioned the pounding he took. "Slow and steady" seems to be a rule of thumb for most survival experts and this guy is jumping off cliffs, running through the forest at night, shooting rapids and running down loose fire breaks...

He made a comment that "More than a million people visit the Rocky Mountains yearly and two thousand never return..." (paraphrased). He should have added, "Lets see if we can't cull the herd even more." LOL

For folks interested in Les Stroud, they are currently in talks about a second season of "Survivorman" at OLN. The popularity of the show almost ensures it will happen if Les can clear up his nutty schedule. The show was highest rated show on The Science Channel, is the most popular show on OLN, and has started a run on The Discovery Channel and beat Mythbusters in nightly ratings despite the fact it has been cropped to a half an hour.

From his latest journal entry:
"So……as a result of all that I have been busy for the past month or more:

A) guest hosting on a series for Discovery US called ‘I Shouldn’t Be Alive – part 2 – The Science of Survival) – (shot in Colorado and England where they put me in a chamber and did hypothermia and frostbite testing on me).

B) Hosting a series of vignettes for Discovery US/Disney about surviving Mount Everest for a documentary they produced about Disney’s new ride Expedition Everest. This is what I am returning from right now.

C) Preparing to shoot a one-hour special I created called Urban Disaster Survival about what to do in a situation like New Orleans (shooting mid-March)

D) Preparing to secure a second run of Survivorman (OLN is already happily on board for a second season)

E) Developing a new series called ‘Stroud’s Legends’

F) Trying hard to get back to finishing a new CD I am recording with Canadian hit makers ‘The Northern Pikes’.

G) Negotiating with a major publishing company for a book series on Survivorman, Off The Grid and more.

H) oh yeah – did I mention building our cabin in the woods??"

I guess you can tell I'm a fan of Stroud. LOL

Anyway... Back to the topic at hand...

Uh, Brad, I think a lot of us here could make him look like the redheaded stepchild of survival.

It's on then, a "Survival Off"

<img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

As I watched that program, I wondered if/when the folks on this board would comment.

I also found myself thinking "What the....?" at much of his advise. The "action" footage of him hauling a.. through the woods made me wonder when he was going to sprain/twist/break his ankle(s) or worse.

I also wondered what was up with his penchant for getting wet, when the circumstances for doing so seemed pretty unnessesary....especially when he commented on the 40 degree water.

Harley

It WAS entertaining, though. And Bear is photogenic. The camera likes him.

-- Craig

It was a pretty good lesson in what to NOT do from everything I've read.

Let's see

• Don't eat anything unless absolutely sure you know what it is and how it should be prepared.
• Don't go into the water unless it's absolutely necessary. Certainly not 40deg F. water.
• Don't DIVE into any unkown waters. Certainly not from any serious height.
• Don't move in the dark - although if there really was a bear (seems like it was all contrived) maybe booking out of there was the right thing to do. I think he was running because he had the camera lights.
• Don't run period (sweat!).
• Don't heat water-laden rocks over a fire.
• Don't go anywhere without a good knife!.
• Free-floating white-water rapids? Maybe in the military, but this is probably a fast ticket to deadsville, or maybe the scenic route to deadsville by way of broken-bone hypothermia town.
• Belaying down a cliff with suspect rope.
• Running down a crumbling hill-side

Those were the things I remembered. I'm not sure how smart it was to eat dirty worms, either.

In general, some of the things he did might be arguably smart (like the debris shelter and lining the ground with needles for insulation) but it seemed like it wasn't geared toward either the enthusiast or the neophyte. It looked largely like an exercise in "see what I can do" and how good I look doing it.

This guy may look good on camera but the whole show was so contrived that I couldn't wait till it was over to see what the members of this forum would say. I just got lucky in being the first to post, anyone who has spent even ten minutes reading this forum would have caught most if not all of his mistakes. As someone who has made a fire by friction and knows how hard it is I was really bothered by the fact that he obviously had help getting that fire going. He was using a hand drill (not a bow and drill) just a hand drill and when they showed a closeup just as he got fire he had a pile of embers bigger than my webber grill could hold (thinly veiled sarcasam)
I think we can all feel pretty good knowing that we are all better prepared than this so called expert.

You know, Brad, I didn't know this watch existed until you mentioned it. Though a buddy of mine just dropped $3500+ in the Carribean for a Breitling (with US Warranty), it's still out of my reach. :-)

Anyway, I got interested and happened up on this post and thought others might want a look:
Signaling - includes Breitling Emergency <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

When I got my Breitling, the salesman was showing me the PLB model. To be honest, I almost did it but it was almost twice what I was paying to begin with...just couldn't justify it right then.

He told them that they originally marketed them toward millionaire playboy pilot types and just recently started selling them to the general public. Also said they have they have 27 recorded saves so far too.

Pretty neat but not $4500 neat.

Agreed. I'd much rather get a full service Suunto with GPS and what have you, and spend the extra $3500 on one of D.R.'s new Air kits. That still leaves me with a grand, so I'd sink that into a nice PLB, some 14 mile 2-ways, a backpack solar charger and a few other items..

Ah... I could get a lot more neat out of $4500. :-) It's definitely cool, but I'll save it for when I hit that first million.

Ron Hood was a consultant on this. While he was not pleased with how the show was edited -- he is a survivalist, not an entertainer -- he said the bear did come into the camp and our host was running for a very good reason -- his life was in danger.

-- Craig

Hi Craig,

Where did you see that? I'd be curious to know what parts he wasn't happy with and why. There was so much wrong that I'm surprised he would still want his name attached to the project. Some of the advice was pretty terrible, and that's just with my limited understanding... I'm no DR, but I can tell bulls**t when I see it.

One other thing, I like the Survivorman show as well as many of the others here, but I think the Ultimate Survivor and Survivorman both suffer from the whole deadline thing. More often, I'd like to see them hunker down for that set time period and not attempt to leave every week. The 5 day time limit on Ultimate Survivor seemed rather aritrary, but it certainly set the stage for foolhardy adventure. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I think Les could do more (no pun intended) with showing how he gets water, insulates himself, etc. Actually showing techniques instead of glossing over all of that. I've seen enough moving through the jungle or dragging a pouch on ice montages for a while...

Here's the page:
http://survival.com/IVB/index.php?showtopic=7337

You need to be a member, I think. This is what Ron Hood said:

***

I'm not certain how much of the show I can cover but I can clear up a couple of things.

There were supposed to be 3 people involved.

Bear in the field was 70% of the show

Ron in the comm shack was 25%

A "specialist" in this case white water rescue was 5% of the show. We were to use a new specialist in each show.

As Bear did things or errored on them I would either talk with bear via radio comms or discuss proper techniques with the specialist. We also provided stories, stats and facts. During emergencies I would talk Bear through the problems. Bear was to have a personal Video transmitter he talked into and not a "Camera Crew". As I understood it the night running scenes were just to establish that he was leaving the area and were to have been Dark and not bright white. A few night scenes would have sufficed to get the material across.

In the fish scene Bear was to tear off the skin and then eat the meat. The skin was the "Dirty" part but the chance of catching Guardia from such a minimal exposure are low. They just showed the tearing and eating, not discarding the skin. As I remember I added a few words about the meat being clean.

He ran off because the bear actually came into camp and attacked his shelter. The shelter was all but destroyed and after the bear left he took off. The bear paw in the mud was to have been closer to the beginning of the show to help establish the presence of a threat (the bear). I and the specialist offered useful stats on bear attacks and proper response to the situations. That was all left out.

He entered the water partly because the threat from the bear was eminent and he wanted to break the scent trail some. Then he got caught up in the rapids and couldn't get out thus the need for "Self Rescue" techniques that never showed up. It was not meant to be a travel method... it was an accident he had to survive. His later narration cancelled out the accident issue. The specialist discussed water hypothermia specifically and I discussed it in a general way. I prompted him via radio to do some exercises to warm up his muscles and then get busy making shelter. When we filmed the fire bed scene I advised them to let him leave the fire going as well as heat the ground but they wanted to be done with it because it was late and raining at the time.

The crew shot a lot of extra footage so it was available if needed. It looks like they used a lot of the throw away scenes.

Altogether we spent three days on the rapids. It was one of the most tiring and challenging times and Bear took it all with a smile. He was cold and hypothermic half the time. I tried to shelter him from the production crews exuberance to torture him "Ey Mate... he' SAS he can take anything" I argued with them several times and got him covered. My objections to the water scenes were many and varied but in the interest of drama... they insisted on it.

In the rappel scene there was supposed to only be a short descent on paracord. Instead they wanted a cliff. I had to rig a real rappel which is why you see him in a body rap (Dorfensitz) and then hanging by a harness in the long shots. I would never recommend anyone use body rap with paracord unless they wanted to die. Nor would I recommend using the cord in anything but a true emergency and then only for a short descent of less than 20 feet. Rapping with paracord is done with a toggle.

I hope that helps.

Ron

*****

Wow. Just goes to show that "Hollywood" and producers just don't get it. They made it into something that was supposed to be exciting instead of a learning experience. Bad, bad television. I'm glad Ron Hood cleared the air a bit. I'm sure he's less than happy with the results - I know I was and from the sound of it, everyone else on here.

I know that they have to differentiate their product from the competition, but why make it so blatantly against "survival" and how to survive. Some of it was useful if you were forced into those situations - I'll give them that. But if you took out all the bogus drama it still could have been both informative and exciting.

*sigh* Maybe I should take a camera in the woods.... <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for posting that Craig... much appreciated.

Thanks for passing along the info.

It does go to show you what happens when decisions are made based on a grab for ratings and what can happen to a show in post because of it.

"Just goes to show that "Hollywood" and producers just don't get it."

When have they ever??? Think back on all the TV stuff and movies you've seen where they've had the characters doing the dumbest things imaginable.

Uh, well.... I should probably admit that I'm no longer allowed to watch those things in human company, due to my comments on the idiocies... String of comments, actually. Plus vulgar opinons. <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Fortunately, the dog doesn't care.

When I drove limo in Las Vegas, I had a guy on board once who was an insurance investigator. He said that people who want to burn down their own properties often hire teenagers to do them. He said he's always suspected that they do this because they know kids are usually raised on TV, and think that they can do things like douse the inside of a building with gasoline (easiest, cheapest to obtain without questions) and then stand inside and ignite a match or road flare, and the fire will just run around like it does on TV, when the reality is that the place simply explodes. This way, they rarely have to worry about the kid talking about the deal, because he's a badly incinerated body.

Sue

TV is a ratings game. It is also one of age group. If the producers/advertisers want the 18 to 49 group, but snag the 50+ group, but earn great ratings, they will still pull the plug.

-- Craig

Remember that "exciting" has a much better chance of snagging viewers and ratings than a "learning experience" does. And TV is all about the ratings and the age groupings. That's it. Learning doesn't enter into it at all.

-- Craig

I have not seen that program.
According to all the negative reactions, it was quite bad !
But Ron's explanations throw another light (?) on the subject, isn't it ?? I mean it seems the intend of that program was quite different from the released video.

Don't hasten to throw the stone ... not before knowing at who (or is it "onto" or "to" ..?? help needed with that sentence... <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />) ...
As Jeff Cooper says in his fourth rule : "be sure of your target" ! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

It's not that it was "bad". It was certainly entertaining and I watched the whole thing. It was just that I did a lot of eye rolling. Had they explained things more, cut it differently... perhaps it would have been better technically. It's just that they went for the "I can't believe I survived" drama factor without much thought as to how safe any of those stunts were. Any person in a real survival situation without any training could very well kill themselves following some of the advice given.

After reading more commentary on this show, I tend to believe that most folks here would probably still watch this simply because we are sick and can't get enough (just like gear, knives, guns, or pictures of other people's gear). <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Perhaps we are being too harsh. I'm fairly sure the principal and advisors had the best of intentions. As Les Stroud pointed out in a recent thread, their ability to make those intentions reality were stymied. I'd give the show another chance, but if it's much the same, I can watch a lot of fabricated drama elsewhere.

I didn't think it was bad at all. Think of it primarily as entertainment, then as education. I was entertained and got a bit of education. I enjoyed the show.

-- Craig