Just read this and try to tell me that the whole world of broadcasting hasn’t gone totally and utterly bonkers.
Is there anything else that can be said on this subject that can inject a note of reason into proceedings? What a revelation, Bear Grylls stopped in a hotel while filming Born Survivor. So what?
Would it be going too far to suggest this is the TV equivalent of the McCarthy witch hunts of 1950s America? In this case, there are no reds under the beds of TV executives, just premium phoneline scandals and Bear Grylls who didn’t want to stump up the cash for his hotel room.
The TV industry needs to stop this madness right now, or it will go into meltdown when an investigation reveals Coronation Street isn’t a fly on the wall documentary series about northern folk.
Just stop it, okay? Please…
Whilst I think we need to keep some sort of proportion to all the hysteria in TV land I do think this is a big deal.
I watched all the series and really enjoyed it, but knowing Bear was half an hour from a motel, or accidentally came across tame horses that were put in position by some flunky does change your perception of the show.
For example why did he bother eating a live frog, presumably his bags were full of mars bars and items from the mini bar, same with the Turtle he ate.
I watched the series slightly suspicious, and it seems rightly so. There is no reason they couldn't have been honest and said 'this camp is a reconstruction - I'm off the the local travelodge'
We rely on natural history shows to be reliable - how many people grow up thinking lemmings are suicidal ? We now know that Disney decided to push them off a cliff in White Wilderness their 1958 'documentary' - standards should have improved by now !
I agree with Matt. The show was presented as documentary style, following him through the jungle - it was based on a fiction. Either have documentary or drama but we are talking credibility and ethics here. I saw one episode where he appeared so sick after spending the night in the rainforest that he was talking about the lack of possibility of rescue and most (if not all) the footage was handheld or tripod giving the impression that he was indeed alone. Now we find out that it was simply a lie, he had a full team with him and he didn't really sleep in the rainforest - he was probably sprayed with water at the start of the second day and was wearing make-up to look ill.