Man vs Wild

From LoveToKnow Reality-TV

Man vs Wild is a reality TV show on the Discovery Channel starring Bear Grylls. The show teaches wilderness survival tips by stranding Grylls in the middle of nowhere and filming his struggles and successes.

Man vs. Wild locations include the African desert.

Man vs Wild Overview

Man vs Wild premiered on October 27, 2006. Each episode is one hour in length and features a different location. The locations vary a great deal, from hot, dry deserts to cold, icy snow plains.

Grylls is left by the production crew in these locations. The episode then chronicles his journey from the drop-off point back to civilization. The highlights of the show are Grylls' attempts to find food, create a shelter, and navigate his way back to society.

Man vs Wild airs in fourteen countries, including the United States, Spain, Australia, Canada, and Russia. It also goes by the title Born Survivor and Ultimate Survival.

Featured Locations

Man vs Wild has filmed in a variety of locations, including:

The Sahara Desert
Jungles of Panama
The Andes Mountains
Siberia, Russia
The Yukon, Canada
Zambia and Namibia, Africa
Hell's Canyon, Oregon

About Bear Grylls

Bear Grylls was born on June 7, 1974 in Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom. After he finished school he joined the armed forces where he broke three vertebrae in his back during a parachuting accident in Kenya. He spent almost two years in various rehabilitation programs as a result of his injury.

Remarkably, at the age of 23, Grylls climbed to the summit of Mount Everest after his back injury. At the time he was the youngest Brit to accomplish this task. He went on to tackle other adventures including:

Circumnavigating the U.K. in a personal watercraft
Crossing the North Atlantic in an inflatable boat
Hosting a dinner party suspended under a hot air balloon at 25,000 feet in the air

Grylls has written a number of books, including Facing the Frozen Ocean and The Kid Who Climbed Everest. He is married and has three children named Jessie, Marmaduke, and Huckleberry. Grylls owns his own island off the shores of Wales, which includes a nature reserve. He divides his career between reality television and motivational speaking.

Show Controversies

While Bear Grylls is certainly capable of surviving under almost any conditions, the show has come under fire repeatedly for misleading viewers. Though Grylls has said on the show that he does not receive any assistance or interference unless he comes across a life-threatening situation, several allegations have been made since the show began. Here are a few examples:

Grylls stayed in a California hotel during the filming of the California mountain range episode, rather than actually spending entire nights in the wild.

Situations have been manufactured by production staff, instead of actually occurring on their own.

Grylls' run-in with wild horses was staged. Viewers noticed that the horses were groomed and wearing horseshoes, and the producers later admitted that they were stable horses.

An episode that was meant to feature a small, out of the way island in the South Pacific had scenes filmed in a movie set. On this same show, a raft that Grylls appeared to have built himself was actually prefabricated and taken apart in sections prior to filming.

Producers Respond and Make Changes

After these allegations came to light the show was put on hiatus for several weeks. The production team responded by saying that the intention was never to film a documentary-style program, but to offer real survival solutions and tips.

When Man vs Wild returned, episodes had been edited. Some scenes were removed completely, while others were preceded by voiceovers, explaining what had been staged or altered. The show now offers much more transparency for viewers, but many have turned away after feeling deceived.