Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Survivorman is Freakin Crazy

Has anyone seen Survivorman? Les Stroud is the Survivorman and he is 100% insane. The show drops Survivorman off in some remote location with virtually no supplies and 50lbs of camera equipment and leaves him for a week to survive on his own. Remote is an understatement. They've dropped him off on a liferaft in the middle of the ocean with only a bucket and handpump; a broken snowmobile in the Arctic- with 3 matches, a knife, multitool and a rifle for polar bears; the Sonoran desert on a broken down bicycle with one bottle of water. For a week.

In each episode Survivorman attempts to make it back to civilization before his air crew goes searching for him 7 days later. He loves to eat wild edibles and snare and eat wildlife like rabbits or snails or grubs. He will use what he has in unique ways- soaking the snowmobile seat cushion in gas to take gas for a fire with him or putting rocks that have been in his fire into his hat filled with water to boil some pond lily roots. The crazy thing is that he films it all with multiple cameras; you'll see him fjording a river or trekking across a long arctic plain and then you realize he actually has to go back to retrieve his camera and redo that part with the camera in tow.

Basically Survivorman is a masochistic nut job but a smart one. He makes the Crocodile Hunter look like a one trick circus pony and he makes contestants on Survivor look like they're on a luxury resort island. Les Stroud is the real deal Holyfield. And he has an awesome logo. Make sure to catch the full 1 hour episodes on The Science Channel (111 in NYC) on Friday at 10p (and other times) and not the Discovery Channel 30 minute cutdowns.
category: tv_