Bear Grylls is not quite a survivor

Saunterer said:
Supposedly from reading various sources; it is going to be re-tooled a bit and have more disclaimers in the intro. Another forum I read, someone contacted Discovery and they were re-editing the second season to reflect this and that is why we haven't seen in on recently.

But this was on the internet, so take it for what it's worth.
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The Times of London reports here that:

[Discovery Channel] Viewers will hear a disclaimer before each show stating that Grylls receives help from survival experts and health and safety officers.
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However, first the show has to survive... Here's more from that same article:

IT was billed as one of Bear Grylls’s most audacious challenges yet. The Eton-educated television adventurer had to escape an active volcano in the Pacific by leaping across molten lava and avoiding clouds of “killer” gas.

However, the episode of Born Survivor set on the Mount Kilauea volcano in Hawaii has emerged as faked in a scandal that has embroiled the television industry - and now threatens Grylls’s future TV career.

The white clouds of poisonous “sulphur dioxide” that billowed around the former SAS explorer were, in fact, harmless vapour created by smoke machines. And according to insiders, the red glow of the molten magma which he warned could incinerate him “in seconds” was supplemented by burning hot coals brought in by members of the production team.

This weekend Discovery Channel, which produced the programme, said the trickery had been identified as part of a review of the show.

Last month The Sunday Times disclosed how other parts of the programme, which were sold to Channel 4, were also faked: Grylls stayed in hotels when he claimed to be “a real life Robinson Crusoe” on a desert island; a raft he was shown building to use to escape was, in fact, put together by a team of experts; in another episode the producers shipped horses from a trekking station to pose as wild mustangs.

Now Grylls is in danger of being dropped from the C4 schedules. “If what has been alleged is proven to be true, I think the channel would have to think very seriously about its future relationship with him,” said a senior C4 executive.

Grylls, who once served with 21 SAS Territorial Army Squadron, first came to the public eye as the youngest Briton to climb Everest, at the age of 23, before moving into adventure documentaries.

In the volcano episode, which has not been broadcast on C4, he is filmed amid clouds of white gas seeping from the crust of the lava field. “Look at this, you can actually see the sulphur dioxide seeping out of these vents,” he says. “In high concentrations this gas is a killer.”

But this was “special effects” according to a safety adviser.

“Sulphur dioxide fumes are colourless and you can’t see it, so smoke generators were used off-screen to make the existing fumes seem visible,” he said.

A Discovery insider said the fakery was “unacceptable” and had been identified in an internal investigation. Now the channel is reediting the series. Viewers will hear a disclaimer before each show stating that Grylls receives help from survival experts and health and safety officers.

C4 will decide whether to continue broadcasting Grylls’s programmes after its own investigation into Born Survivor concludes this autumn. It has already decided not to repeat the show, which drew 1.4m viewers in 2006.

A spokesman for Grylls said he felt unable to comment as the investigation was continuing.
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Smoke machines and hot coals from the grill... now that's survival!!! :D
 
I just watched a "Survivorman" in the Amazon rain forest and he survived, but just barely. Aside from better photography, I think why I prefer Bear's show is that what he does is more transferable to what might actually happen to an average hiker or stranded person. Of course the snake head biting would be optional. Just a relaxing hour imagining how to get through a few days and nights while trekking your way out of a situation using what's at hand with a solid basis in plant and animal lore. He also tests the odd bit of equipment like the titanium fire striker or whatever that thing was that worked well for him in one episode.
 
skyahn said:
....is that what he does is more transferable to what might actually happen to an average hiker or stranded person.
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Yep. Exactly right. When your average hiker gets lost, they make stupid decisions that can get them injured or killed due to lack of real woods experience. (Hence why they are lost to begin with.) And this TV show is doing a great deal to to thin out the herd. :thumbdn:

Those that really practice the skills of wood lore are quite comfortable in the wild without resorting to "stunts" to entertain a captive audience.
"
 
Those titanium sparky things can be pretty handy.

skyahn,
welcome to the forum it is a great place to learn, a wealth of outdoor knowledge. Stick around a little while and you might not continue to believe bears basis in plant and animal lore. Chris
 
He squeezes water from turds and eats dead animals. I give him credit, he's broken the pansy Brit mold! I wouldn't take what he says as THE WAY, though.
 
two cents time. I don't care if Bear stays at a 4 star hotel every night. I know that he has a camera crew and safety people following him around. I don't care too much, because he is able to cover more ground that way (does not have to lug 75 pounds of camera equipment with him every where).
Some of the stuff he does (scaling down 90 foot waterfalls etc) I would never try and do, and 90% of us would die trying.

"Ummm, I think I will look for an easy way down this 100 foot cliff, since I am not a professional rock climber...."

I still find the show entertaining. Every once in a while I learn something that seems useful. But don't take everything he does as survival Bible info
 
just seen a couple of episodes on youtube

hahah that man really is entertaining, eating maggots from a carcass, biting into living raw fish and etc :D
 
“Sulphur dioxide fumes are colourless and you can’t see it, so smoke generators were used off-screen to make the existing fumes seem visible,” he said.
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that is some pretty serious misinfo tho

this can kill someone!!
 
skyahn said:
I just watched a "Survivorman" in the Amazon rain forest and he survived, but just barely. Aside from better photography, I think why I prefer Bear's show is that what he does is more transferable to what might actually happen to an average hiker or stranded person. Of course the snake head biting would be optional. Just a relaxing hour imagining how to get through a few days and nights while trekking your way out of a situation using what's at hand with a solid basis in plant and animal lore. He also tests the odd bit of equipment like the titanium fire striker or whatever that thing was that worked well for him in one episode.
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this is just so wrong, and I think is exactly why this show is a problem.
 
just seen an online episode of survivorman now

must
say
sounds waay more serious and real that that bear grills guy :D
 
skyahn said:
I just watched a "Survivorman" in the Amazon rain forest and he survived, but just barely. Aside from better photography, I think why I prefer Bear's show is that what he does is more transferable to what might actually happen to an average hiker or stranded person. Of course the snake head biting would be optional. Just a relaxing hour imagining how to get through a few days and nights while trekking your way out of a situation using what's at hand with a solid basis in plant and animal lore. He also tests the odd bit of equipment like the titanium fire striker or whatever that thing was that worked well for him in one episode.
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Couldn't disagree with you more. M vs. W is overblown, over marketed, dangerous, and worst of all.... fake. If you are going for simple entertainment..... well I personally would still would rather watch Survivorman.
 
It looks like Eddie has gone from slamming real survival experts by proxy to acknowledging the changes coming to MvW --- feeling the pressure, perhaps? He still seems oddly disconnected from his un-expert-ness, though.

I am off this week to start filming the rest of Man Vs Wild Season Two. I’m a bit daunted but definitely excited, and the environments are now even more extreme. They include the Sahara, Patagonia, Panama and Siberia...in winter.

The new shows will also now be two hours long, instead of one - partly because so many of the locations are so remote, but also so we can go into greater detail, and show the behind the scenes work, including the crew’s role.

One of my goals is to be clearer that this is not a programme about ‘textbook’ survival. It is more like extreme survival, showing what you can do in desperate situations. I always work within my own capabilities and training, but these capabilities might be different from other people’s. I don’t want people to copy what I do, but to watch, hopefully enjoy and in so doing learn something that might one day save their life.
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Meanwhile, the BBC reports that:

The US Discovery Channel is to ensure a survival show is "100% transparent" in future after conceding parts could have misled viewers, according to reports.

Man vs Wild - called Born Survivor on Channel 4 in the UK - saw Bear Grylls supposedly abandoned in the wild.

But a consultant said Grylls stayed in a motel and had scenes set up for him.

"Isolated elements" were not "natural to the environment", Discovery said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, and promised greater clarity in future.

"For health and safety concerns, the crew and host received some survival assistance while in the field," the channel told the publication.

"Moving forward, the programme will be 100% transparent, and all elements of the filming will be explained upfront to our viewers."

Discovery also promised that any repeats of the series would be "edited appropriately".

Matter 'taken seriously'

The issue of scenes being manipulated was raised by Mark Weinert, a US survival consultant.

He told the UK's Sunday Times that Grylls spent nights in a motel in Hawaii when he was claiming to be stranded on a desert island.

Mr Weinert also alleged that a raft was put together by team members before being taken apart so Grylls could be filmed building it.

Channel 4 said the programme never specifically claimed Grylls was coping "unaided".

But it said it took "seriously" any suggestion of its viewers being misled and promised to raise the matter with Diverse Productions, who made the show.

Diverse Productions declined to add to Channel 4's statement, and Grylls' agent was not available for comment.

The integrity of television shows has come under the spotlight in the UK in recent weeks, with claims that some factual programmes were manipulated and winners for phone-in competitions were faked.
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Sort of like all of the old Sally Struther's commercials, begging for money for food for the children...you know there is a picanic basket behind the camera, you know she's not starving...you know the crew is eating...give the kids some food people. :D
 
I am coming in late on this thread, and hopefully am not repeating anything, but if you look at the show's credits, Bear is not held out as the survival expert. He is the "Presenter." And while he has some credentials, in this instance, he actually doesn't have to have any, since he is not the official font of survival knowledge for the show.
 
BlackPaladin said:
... Bear is not held out as the survival expert. He is the "Presenter..." he is not the official font of survival knowledge for the show.
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BlackPaladin, the reason many of us on this forum are critical of Eddie G is precisely because he *is* portrayed as a survival expert. His voiceover narration at the beginning of every ep states "I will show you how to survive..." and he constantly makes remarks like, "When I was in British special forces, I learned that [insert 'survival advice']..."

Having said that -- I agree with you that a careful parsing of the show's credits, and of the, to quote Eddie, "extreme survival" tactics he uses, reveal that his survival skills are "underwritten" by others. However, most viewers are not that discerning, and a handful of those viewers might do themselves harm if they follow Eddie's lead because he has "shown [them] how to survive."

If you feel those of us on this forum are overly critical, that's your right, but I urge you to look at other wilderness/bushcraft/survival forums -- Bushcraft.co.uk and Survival.com in particular share this forum's majority view about Eddie.
 
You mean all of these reality TV shows are edited?
Are they only showing a "package" of highlights for ratings?
I thought when I watched a Fishing show they just wet a line and pulled in a boat load of whoppers, you mean there was hours of boring no bites crap to make 30 minutes of TV?

Next you will be telling me is all "made for TV"
I was saying to my mates watch this bloke Bear, he will die in one of these episodes and you know what they said?
Nah he has a camera crew and backup, its made as TV entertainment, I was shocked. :D:yawn::D:yawn::D:yawn::(
 
Danno4017 said:
I thought when I watched a Fishing show they just wet a line and pulled in a boat load of whoppers, you mean there was hours of boring no bites crap to make 30 minutes of TV?
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Totally untrue. Those guys are just much better fishermen than you are. :p
 
BlackPaladin said:
I am coming in late on this thread, and hopefully am not repeating anything, but if you look at the show's credits, Bear is not held out as the survival expert. He is the "Presenter." And while he has some credentials, in this instance, he actually doesn't have to have any, since he is not the official font of survival knowledge for the show.
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Incorrect.

I polled sheeple in my every day life and 100% of them said he was an expert in what he does. Thus what he does is believed and viewed as credible, very dangerous especially for kids. Forget about what you know or heard about the show, most who watch it believe he is for real.

that has to stop.

Skam
 
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