The other day I dugg this story (digg link), which talks about Man vs. Wild being faked. I intended to post about it here when I got the chance, but someone got to it before I did and posted in the forums.
I already posted my thoughts about this in a reply to the forum thread, but will add a bit more to my comments. As I said in the reply, I was rather upset to learn that Man vs. Wild isn’t the adventure we thought it to be. Yes, there is a camera crew, we’re told as the show comes on that they’ll be following Bear Grylls around.
However, we the viewers, are given the impression that the only people with Bear is the camera crew, and Bear is doing everything else we see unaided. Now, I always figured that if something were to happen to Bear where he got extremely sick or injured that someone would come in and pick him up rather than trying to make him really find his way to civilization. Though, I wouldn’t mind seeing him try to set a broke leg bone, splint it, and still make his way down a steep mountain.
According to the article, Bear has spent nights comfortably in a motel rather than the wilderness or worse had the help of engineers when it comes to building things. Rafts, shelter, whatever will apparently be built by engineers first, tested, and then torn down so that he can rebuild them later.
What’s wrong with that? Bear isn’t being honest with his viewers. He says that he’ll be showing everyone the skills needed to survive. The only things that he’ll have with him are his clothes, a knife, a bottle of watter, and a flint. Apparently there were a few other items that he neglected to mention, that we wouldn’t have in such situations. Say for example, a team of people helping him with everything.
While we should have expected as much. They should have at least put some kind of disclaimer in the opening dialogue.