RateItAll: The Opinion Network

want some new shows!!!!

I first caught this show last summer when I was in the hospital and they were running a 12 hour marathon. Bear Grylls alone gets my 4 stars, oh lala! the show is pretty graphic but informative, but I always feel like I should be taking notes on what he says will surely safe my life if Im ever stranded in the Scottish Mountains during winter,or in the Outback during the summer,or in the Rain Forrest anytime.

This guy certainly knows his survival stuff - but is it me or is he full of himself? He is also reckless - running through the jungle, sliding down hills, jumping into crevaces. Unlike Survivorman, which is about how to survive - this show seem more about the host and how cool he looks running through the wilderness. The skills he shows play second fiddle to the close ups of him breathing heavy - Survivorman actually shows you how to act in a crisis situation. If you tried to act like the host of Man v Wild you would be exhaused, sweaty and probably injured in real life.

This show is awesome. Bear Grylls is pretty hardcore - I'm watching the Iceland one right now, and he's already jumped 30 feet into a glacial river (giving him about 15 minutes to get to a thermal pool about a mile away or he dies), and popped the eye ball out of a dead sheep for lunch. I'm afraid this chap is on track to go out the way the Crocodile Hunter did.

I've only come across this show by accident recently (along with the similar "Survivorman") but it's pretty fascinating. Bear Grylls seems to be an affable, athletic chap who engages in what I can only describe as suicidal behavior in order to demonstrate what you must do to survive if you ever find yourself lost in a blizzard in the French Alps, or a desolate swamp in the Everglades, or the Brazilian Rain Forest, or some other beautiful but God-forsaken landscape. In the French Alps episode, he stood by an iced-over lake in the frigid Arctic-like temperature, and said, "You should never allow yourself to slip or fall into water this intensely, life-threateningly cold, as your body will start shutting down within minutes, but in order to show you how to survive it if it should happen, I'm going to jump in myself." Which he proceeds to do. And what he does in the same episode to procure nourishment will turn you off to sushi for the rest of your life. In another episode, he catches a snake, bites off its head, and swallows it whole. In the Alaskan woods, he kneels beside a fresh bear (not Bear) turd and says with astonishing insouciance, "This is an extremely fresh turd and I believe the bear is very close by and could come barreling out of the bushes any second. You should shake the leaves and make a loud noise, as the bear, if it gets too close, could tear your head off with one swipe of its claws." On another occasion, he jumps into quicksand, allows himself to sink up to his chest, and then proceeds to demonstrate how to extricate yourself from it. While you're always aware while watching this show that Bear (not bear), a member of the British armed services and supposedly the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest, could probably take out your Adam's Apple with one quick jab of his index finger, he seems like a genuinely nice guy obviously enthused about what he does, and you can imagine spending a fascinating hour or 2 in conversation with him at the local pub over a pint (and if no pints were available, I'm sure he would know how to manufacture some out of crabgrass, acorns and tree sap). He makes Rambo look like Barney Fife.

Bear Grylls. Ex British Special Forces, climbed Everest, sailed around the world and managed to sit through Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" wihout laughing once. This boy is tough! One of his survival techniques, other than the well-known and practiced water enema, is to piss on an article of clothing and wrap said article around your head to keep it cool when you suddenly find yourself smack dab in the middle of the Moab desert. Screw that! Don't know about anyone else, but I'm saving my leaks for drinking water.