Survivorman

I was transfixed by this show since my first viewing. One man in the wild for seven days - no camera crew, nothing but a multi-tool and some basic equipment. The show is set up to more or less mimic a typical survival situation - lost at sea, lost while hiking, a plane crash in the wilderness, etc. It adds an extra element of credibility and realism.

The host then proceeds to do what he must to survive with what he has available, and to make use of or anticipate a use for what he is left with, be it a damaged bicycle, plane, parachute, backpack, etc. Les is alone in this, performing everything including all of his own camera work. So when we see him walking off into the distance or climbing down a bluff, he has to walk or climb all the way back to his camera to retrieve it.

The wilderness settings are incredibly varied, from the arctic to the jungles, tropical islands to open ocean. We get a taste of just about every possible terrain as well, from mountains to desert plains.

The thing I like the most about the show is its practicality. Les doesn't take unnecessary risks for the sake of entertainment. He cooks his food whenever he can, doesn't attempt unrealistic tasks that would set him up for injury, and otherwise attempts to conserve his energy as much as possible. He also stresses the psychological aspects of survival, focusing on keeping his spirits up to avoid the depression and lonely solitude of his situation.

I don't have much criticism for the show. Les plans to be rescued in seven days, and it is often easy to see this anticipation in his routine. In a way this reduces the tension, since we know he will be saved at a predetermined time. But then again if someone isn't rescued from being lost in a few days, then their chance of survival diminishes dramatically. It is not realistic to eschew certain safety considerations and prolong one's suffering merely because I think it might make for a more unpredictable show.

So then my complaints really are minor and perhaps frivolous, since this remains among my favorite shows on TV. Practical, interesting, often exciting, and filled with useful survival information, this show is great and deserves the success it enjoys. Enjoy with my recommendations.

After being put through the test of time with other survival shows making it on to the scene, Les Stroud's Survivorman still reigns supreme. Unlike the rest, Survivorman is the only one where the host is completely alone throughout the filming of every episode. And each one is done for seven days, as opposed to some usually unknown (and probably shorter) length of time, as in the case of Man versus Wild, Dual Survival, etc.

Although it is not as exciting as some of the competition, using what you learn from Les will not get you killed. There is no climbing into bottomless crevasses of glaciers or doing butt slaloms down scree slopes, but rather just straight forward survival techniques displayed in easy to understand presentations.

And perhaps most important aspect of the show is the amount of failures that Les encounters. Even with the years of experience that he has accumulated, many of his attempts fall flat simply due to the actual difficulty of what he is trying to do. This not only presents a realistic image of how hard true survival is, but it also shows that in a survival situation, you can fail many times and still survive.

I stumbled onto this program on the Discovery Channel completely by accident and was struck by the incredible audacity of Les Straud to undertake such an enterprise. The inherent weakness of most television involves the ever-present camera crew and their entourage. Les does it all. When you are watching "Survivor", you are always aware there are several cameramen lurking about, and you know you are seeing an edited version of "reality." With Les and "Survivorman", you know the only footage you don't see is the endless footage of him selecting a vantage point for the tripod and camera so that he can effectively function as his own cameraman. This is a great program if you are at all interested in true survival of one man against the great wilderness of the world.

Les Stroud is an extraordinary man of 45 highly experienced years as of this writing. His life's journey so far has taken him deep into the world of music for which his "blues harp" talents and compositional skills have established a solid reputation in a realm that both coexists and sublimely contrasts with his unique brand of outdoor adventures which are as informative as they are uniformly grueling.

Les circumnavigates the globe at the behest of his own production team, always seeking new and disparate locations from which to both tackle and parlay his survivalist experiences to those of us willing or wanting to watch him endure his self-inflicted ordeals. It appears that as far as Les is concerned, sometimes his greatest trial is in having to be his own expert cinematographer on site...and the technical hardware doesn't always tolerate the elements as well as Survivorman.

In fact, Mr. Stroud, aside from his incredible courage and skill, is a funny and amusing teacher of how to sensibly spend a week in an unpredictable and often non-sensible (for humans) environment. The viewer is oft awarded a brief respite in the form of comic relief. To that end, and to the Survivorman's considerable credit, Les is willing to lapse into good natured self-deprecation if he becomes frustrated by having mishandled a task or judgment call. Conversely, he's not shy to cheer himself on camera for scoring small successes. The end result of his edited filming is always as full of momentary surprises as it is with the kind of awe-inspiring beauty over which nature reigns supreme, for better or for worse.

As folks from New England are prone to say, if you don't like the weather, then wait a little...and so it is with Les, who's circumstances change as quickly as Mt. Washington's (New Hampshire) atmospheric conditions. And weather can be just one of a plethora of unpleasantries to contend with. Ultimately, Les Stroud is a master of extreme teaching. He perhaps goes to conventionally unreasonable lengths to film himself in all manner of temporarily glorious moments which are usually just the other side of an impending predicament...and he's fully aware of that aspect too.

Mr. Stroud is not a daredevil, nor a thrill-seeker for its own sake, but rather a dedicated outdoors-man and supremely accomplished survivalist among his other complimentary talents. With his production crew often stationed somewhere in the general vicinity, Les does his own thing, alone, with his trusty multi-tool and harmonica for comfort wherever there might be none otherwise. As we quietly slip into his journey, Les enriches our knowledge and entertains our senses. It's a photographic treat to follow his intrepid endeavors from the safety of our personal viewing zone. In the spotty world of reality television, "Survivorman" is as flawless as it is fascinating.

This is definitely one of the most interesting shows to watch. There are lots of survival shows out there, but this one really kicks the competition. This show is great to watch because Les Stroud really does survive. Most of these types of shows use camera crews to document their survival, which isn't bad either, but this is pretty much a one-man show. The show definitely has a lot of great adventures taken on by Les Stroud, the Survivorman. This is a unique show of how insane it is to survive alone in different wilderness situations and scenarios. This is a great show to watch and I'd definitely recommend watching it if you want to see REAL survival.