Since we can't get this new series in the USA yet, I hunted down one of Les' other shows (I think he produces it or something) named "Dual Survival". It's on Netflix streaming. Only season 1, nothing from season 2 yet.

I found that a pretty good show as well. I liked Survivorman better, but Dual Survival is a close runner-up. One good thing about Dual Survival is that we don't have to look at Les' ghost-like face bobbing around in the dark right in front of the camera. It looked like infrared photography or soomething. That always spooked me out - kind of like the Blair Witch Project. I watched all ten available Dual Survival episodes across a week's timespan. There is certainly a vast difference in Cody's and Dave's survival styles. If I were in a bad situation, I would definitely pick Cody as my survival mate.

There's another Les show on Netflix streaming that I think I'll check out next. "Beyond Survival". See if that one's any good...

*** Possible Spoilers ***

I missed the first epsisode of his first outing and saw the second episode. The hunter's leftovers and the tracks seemed way too convenient to me. Les does set up his show to resemble scenarios that people might find themselves in and it looked he was going to great lengths to let people know that it was OK to use personal cabins, etc in an emergency situation.

Although, he doesn't come out and say it - I'm pretty sure this was a setup. To go 10 days without a reasonable amount of food would be very hard on a person's body and he has promised a full season of this. I am pretty confident that this was a pre-arranged food drop by his crew. He magically comes upon a snow trail left only the day before and this leads directly to the cabins and the carcass. I'm not saying that Les knew the details of the setup but that they agreed before hand that the crew would provide these food drops under the guises of the scenario.

Remember, Les and the team scout the locations, they know the terrain from maps and he usually gets prep training by a local (he did in the first couple of seasons anyway). It would be impossible for Les to completely feign surprise so he is probably not told the details of how he is going to be set up either. That way his assumptions while talking to the camera are quite real. This is not to suggest that the show is faked in any sense. He really is out there by himself doing both the camera work and the survival stuff. In episode 2, he really was in a near hypothermic scenario. Being soaked through and through and his only real alternative was to keep crawling down the snow covered slope to the base. He knew there was shelter near the bottom but did not know exactly what -- I expected him in a real life scenario to stop where he was and prep a make shift shelter and dry out instead of continuing down the slope.

I presume that Les has a fail-safe option he isn't showing the camera, perhaps a SPOT devise or something can he use to signal back to the crew that the day has gone OK or if he is in some sort of real emergency he can't handle.

I've now watched the 2nd scenario and I see a similar type of pre-arranged setup coming but I will have to wait to confirm this. My apologies if I have given away too much in the way of spoilers.

I liked the season 2 of "Survive This" a bit more than the 1st as he patterned it to be more like a youth version of Survivorman. Above all, Les wanted no comparisons with "Survivor". No social games and voting people off. He wanted people to take outdoor survival seriously and not as hyped up game. He got a fair bit of critism of Season 1 in the way it was edited on the personalities of the kids so they did some tweaking for the second season. The methods and scenarios the kids go through seem to be good lessons for novices and John Q Public rather than a hard core survival crowd which is the intent of the show in the first place.

I believe he does although I don't really know for sure what it is. I always assumed it was some kind of long range walkie talkie set up (the support crew is usually set up fairly close to Les's location, at least in the original survivorman series).

I forgot to mention that I'm watching the season 2. And I'm totally agree with you that this one is quite different from similar kids shows, which look more like sport games.

We're not getting that show here in the lower 48, at ;least not that i know of anyway.

Google it.

Well, I watched the first two episodes of "Beyond Survival". I doubt I will watch any more. They were mildly entertaining in places, but moved way too slow to keep me interested. I guess I'll just wait for the new Survivorman series to make it to the US or for Netflix streaming to pick up season 2 of Dual Survival.

On Saturday night I watched Episode II, part 2. The complete Episode II was IMO, much better then the first episode. As have I watched and re-watched Survivorman through the years, it has always been my opinion that Stroud seems to be more at ease and comfortable in certain locales and environments and I thought this especially in this episode.

That said, there were a couple of things that struck me as not quite right. Again without giving too much away for those who have not viewed it, Stroud mentions that it was midday and that the sun and heat was very hot. What I did notice though that if was midday, why was his body casting such long shadows from the sun onto the ground like it was more like evening time?. Maybe because I have never been in Mexico and that by midday, that this is normal or perhaps that Stroud's definition of midday is much later then what I consider (2-5 pm)?

Also one other aspect that did not seem quite right. A couple of times, there is a wolf that gets fairly close to Stroud. Nothing wrong there and was interesting. However next, there was a scene taken from overhead with the wolf trotting down the beach. With his limited camera gear and Stroud being the only one person there to film, I thought it was a bit odd that this scene could of been taken by him at that moment. To me it seems like there is another film crew close by...and there are also a couple of more brief scenes where I thought the same. The TV station up here usually will air repeats during the week so I will watch again to recheck my observations.

Lastly. To Stroud's credit, he came up with great method to "carry fire" from one camp to the next then light an actual fire from it. The next move to another area did not work as well but Stroud was still able to start a fire using a more traditional method. I won't give any further spoilers on this but if anyone is wondering, they can send a PM.

I believe it was a coyote or as Les pronounced it "cay-ot-tee". There must have been a second unit out doing background and aerial photography and they also spied the coyotes on the beach. This is very common in other shows, I never really noticed it before with Survivorman.

I didn't notice the inconcruence with the sun and shadows - I will have to rewatch to see what you mean. Midday or 12-1 pm the shadows should be at their shortest.

Les was rather proud of his new fire carrying method, even though it eventually did go out, it served him well for restarting his fire at his first stop. Perhaps he enjoyed it too much.
It was a certainly a lot less work than creating a fire bundle from scrap wood and grass.