Betrayal

So my coworker pointed out this today. Apparently Bear Grylls and Man Vs. Wild is a big fraud. He stays in hotels. Consultants make his rafts and show him how, so they can get the precious shots of him building them. Channel 4, the channel in Britain airing the show, excused themselves, saying fans should know because " he often directly addresses the production team, including the cameraman, making it clear he is receiving an element of back-up." Which is a big fat lie, obviously spoken by someone who doesn't actually watch the show. The ONLY times I've ever seen Bear address the cameraman were when they were in danger and he was telling them to get back or get out of the water or some such warning. And Bear himself has said on the show that he's not allowed to interact with them. Hmph.

Now some of you might not think that this is such a big deal. After all, he's still showing you the survival techniques and he still, as Channel 4 put it, "does his own stunts." But it is. First of all, they lied. I'm tired of people lying, relying on trickery to get good ratings. Plus, while Bear is attractive, liars are not. So all this makes him less attractive. Second of all, I only marginally watch the show to learn how to survive if, by some strange chain of events, I wind up stranded in the arctic or something. A good portion of why I watch is to see how someone well-trained can manage to do these things that are beyond my capabilities. To learn that they are beyond his, too? Such a let-down. Next, they'll tell us that he wasn't actually climbing waterfalls in the wild, that it was all a set and they had those invisible wires holding him up.

That's it. My allegiance now goes to Survivor Man. Not only is his show more informative, because he can't do a huge amount that I can't, but it's more true. After all, he doesn't even have a cameraman with him. He carries all his own equipment.