New Bear Grylls survival competition show

[Onestepmore]

After his split with the Discovery Channel, it seems there's a new Bear Grylls adventure show - an elmination competition that sounds a little similar to the 'Survivor' series
It's called 'Get Out Alive With Bear Grylls' and it looks like it airs this month
It's shot in NZ - does anyone know where?

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-ad ... Alive.html

Edit - haha, i forgot the link

[Hallu]

lol it looks really rubbish. It's reality TV, Grylls just being the host... It's shot on the South Island, no more details on the wikipedia page.

[wayno]

bear is based at Wanaka for about three months... so I"d expect it to be around the south and possibly central south island.. if nothing else there should be some nice countryside eye candy.... his man vs wild south island programme went through some pretty scenic places around aspiring national park.. but it depends. DOC charge to shoot commercial movies in national parks, if discovery don't want to pay the fee then it won't be in the national parks themselves.

[Hallu]

I was actually quite disappointed with his program on the South Island (or on the North for that matter). It shows almost nothing of the landscape, most of the time he's just getting drenched to the bone under a thick forest, jumping off falls etc... I would have expected snow capped mountains, like he did in the French Alps, but nothing. It was mostly similar to many other programs where he just keeps getting wet in a forest.

[wayno]

I think he was busy looking for unique things to eat, the theme was more around following rivers with one pass hop....
maybe he'll show more mixed terrain in the new series, be interesting to see what they show, at least to start with...

you could try a series like this, it shows off a bigger range of nz terrain in HD

http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/DVD/ ... /21002279/


couple of guys reenacting early explorers trips.... they climb a peak at mt cook national park in one trip. and do various alpine passes in others. first show is down a river....

[wayno]

interview on the new show...
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-ad ... Alive.html

[Hallu]

I've watched the first 6 eps. It's not too bad, the main problem is this : they recruited only Americans, which are... well, the basic people you get from any American reality show. Whiny women, overenthusiastic gay guys (not that there's anything wrong with that), recovering drug addicts, people recovering from accidents, newbies or old people trying to prove themselves etc... The elimination process under the camp fire isn't really original either, and they stay surprisingly dry for New Zealand. Over the 6 episodes, only one had rain. Scenery is also always the same. It's hard to get variety when always staying on the same area of the South Island. They should have done it in Australia as well in order to mix desert survival with mountain survival. I'm guessing they intend to change location for each new series, but I'm not even sure it's gonna be picked up for a second one. They need to pick candidates that are fit to do this, in order to make the survival tests more serious. When you have a look at the distances, they actually don't walk that much. They cross waterfalls, or rivers, do some abseiling etc... but never long distance walking.

But all in all, it's certainly a poor follow up to Man Vs. Wild.

[wayno]

they stay dry because they will stop filming when it rains..

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/mu ... and-a-bear

you never know what the budget is, that maybe why they dont travel far, makes filming easier and safety easier.
they were based entirely in wanaka for the duration of the shoot. i havent seen the show so i dont know where they filmed.
you have to pay DOC to film commercially in DOC parks , so if they didnt get permission or decided not to pay doc then that limits where they could film, wanaka is next door to aspiring national park, pretty much everything west and north west of lake wanaka is aspiring park... almost through to the west coast... given other shows bear has done, not much surprises me about how the show would turn out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EecFf1AVBO8

[wayno]

looks like they are filming around the matukituki river behind glendhu bay and in the mountains nearby.
i though the first episode might have been around the lower dart or rees and earnslaw burn as well but could be mistaken, couldnt recognise enough of the landscape to be sure.

[wayno]

they had some massive item attached to the side of their packs running almost the full length, like a big tent, it was in a bag, but they didnt have tents, just small tarps... what was that about, gear advertisement for some bear grylls massive sleeping mat?
actually the show is as bad as i expected, it's watchable... like survivor but with less obnoxious people.
at least bear encourages people to help each other and values it as an attribute he's looking for in the people he wants to win... unlike all the back stabbing and plotting that goes on in Survivor....

[Hallu]

I didn't notice that. But they seem to carry a massive amount of gear while they're supposed to collect their own food, have only tarps, sleeping bags and emergency blankets. Their bag should only be water, sleeping gear, rain clothes, their knife, and that's it. And yet they seem to be carrying about 15 kg of gear.

[wayno]

yeah well its an advert for whatever products bear wants them to plug,, and its not lightweight gear...

[GPSGuided]

your comments appreciated and very helpful. so no probs

you just put it in the "Associated Organisations" in your profile...

Wrong thread again Wayno!

[wayno]

feel a bit sorry for the contestants, they are never given waterproof pants despite being exposed to wet and cold conditions, no wonder they get so cold... his clothing range doesnt make waterproof pants,

[Hallu]

I mostly feel for them during their cold nights. So far not a single group has been able to build a proper shelter.

[wayno]

those bags look like they are synthetic, not the warmest... they made sure they didnt get people with a great deal of serious outdoor experience..

[GPSGuided]

feel a bit sorry for the contestants, they are never given waterproof pants despite being exposed to wet and cold conditions, no wonder they get so cold... his clothing range doesnt make waterproof pants,

Those guys should have learnt from Bear. He takes his pants off when wet and run around nude! Who needs waterproof? LOL

[wayno]

yeah there wasnt much sign of them picking up tips from man vs wild, they missed out on stuffing grass down their tops for insulation

[wayno]

interesting, in one episode they were given solid fuel tablets to cook with,,,
they had rather a lot of trouble lighting them.... because they didnt know they had to be taken out of the packet....
the final episode they went into a major heavily flooded west coast river... they could quite easily have been caught up in a submerged tree and it could have been curtains, even with a flotation device, i think its reckless to put people especially that inexperienced into a river in that condition, normally you would totally avoid entering a river in flood. seemed to me they were just looking to heighten the final episode drama, they are taking advantage of people who cant identify the danger to get them to take on an unreasonably dangerous situation...

[Hallu]

Yeah it felt a bit strange for untrained people to go into this. There were probably boats with rescue crews down the river. All in all it felt too much like a game, which was exactly what Grylls wanted to avoid. Having eliminations, tasks, short hikes, a base camp, all these were big mistakes. There weren't catching their own food, it was always Bear bringing it to them or telling them where to look for it, their shelters were rubbish, and too many teams went into this just for fun with no skills at all. The network probably forced him to do this, but it would have worked so much better with experienced people : he could then have assigned them more difficult and interesting survival tasks.

[wayno]

have you tried to feed yourself in the nz bush? its virtually impossible to find enough to keep yourself alive and its illegal to damage plants on conservation land or kill anything other than pests which are pretty hard to get hold of unless you're a pro at setting up traps, when bear did his man vs wild series in nz he was finding nocturnal animals in daylight, a possum just wandering along the ground in daylight, that just doesnt happen..... you really have to know where to look to find grubs or wetas. when he maoris came to nz they struggled in the south island where their stapple crops wouldnt grow...

[Hallu]

I also was surprised that he found a possum in daylight, but then I watched "New lives in the wild" by Ben Fogle ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2795196/ ), and during the NZ episode, the son of the family living in this wilderness was just finding possums like it was nothing, chasing them with a stick... and that was clearly not a fake. So maybe when you know where to look you can do it.

[andrewa]

Wayno, in terms of feeding yourself , I've spent lots of time in Kahurangi NP, and every time we stopped for a break when walking, or went for a pee, or a morning siht there was some little thrush sized bird that arrived ithin seconds and hopped around extremely close to check us out. Easy "whiskers"! And then there were the blue ducks.....and, just for some crunch, a plate of fried sandflies.....and if you dangle your toes in the river, an eel will soon arrive. But where I've been is relatively remote, so maybe it wouldn't work elsewhere.
A

[wayno]

all our birds are protected nationwide, on conservation land you can only take the fish if you have a licence to do so, it depends where you are the likelihood of getting a licence,
those birds that come up to you are usually only there because a lot of people go to massive effort and trouble to trap predators so that the birds don't get wiped out.
technically the insects are protected on conservation land...
if you can catch a stoat weasel or ferret or possum or rat or mouse you're most welcome to them if you can find them,,, you'l need doc approval to use a trap or bait though... your best bet is to go and shoot a deer or thar or chamois. no restrictions there.... except near the great walks...

[Hallu]

Yep, something often overlooked in survival shows : it's illegal to eat native species, unless you're in a survival situation (a real one...). That's why during this new show they only ate eels, but never birds.

[wayno]

and i think they were only eating eels because they were either outside of conservation land and or they had a dispensation with doc to stock the pond with eels....