Reality TV can go light on the "reality" sometimes, and presenting events as authentic and unaltered
while secretly scripting and staging important scenes is common.
Here are a few events that TV survivalist Bear Grylls didn't really have to "survive,"
but it sure made for a better story onscreen.
The Sierra Nevada mountain region is home to some of the last truly wild horses in the
United States, and wild mustangs have lived in this area for centuries.
In a Season 1 episode of Man Vs. Wild, Grylls was shown attempting to lasso some of the
steeds, but it turned out that these mustangs might not have been so wild after all, the
crew reportedly "hired" them from a trekking station near their filming location.
These were actually relatively tame animals that were accustomed to being around humans,
according to a Sunday Times of London report.
Of course, that doesn't play as well to audiences.
What makes for a more interesting scene: showing Grylls trying to sling a lasso around a "wild"
mustang, or admitting that the crew essentially rented a few horses that weren't actually
running wild?
The answer is obvious.
Everyone knows that an active volcano poses a threat because of all the lava, and there
are other dangers that can be present, like toxic gas.
In an episode of Man vs. Wild in which Grylls explores the Mount Kilauea volcano in Hawaii,
he's shown working to avoid patches of molten lava and clouds of so-called "killer" gas.
But a safety adviser for the show told the Sunday Times that, while the gas should be
avoided in large quantities, the drama on the show was heightened using off-camera smoke
machines.
As for the lava itself?
The crew used burning coals to make the scene look more dangerous.
An active volcano is scary enough, they probably didn't have to add all that.
In Man vs. Wild, Grylls is supposed to be on his own in whatever inhospitable environment
he ended up in.
After all, it's called Man vs. Wild, not "Grylls and his crew lending a helping hand vs. Wild."
But it's been revealed that Grylls has been assisted by his crew on several occasions
without letting the audience in on the truth, even when he was not in immediate danger.
"I'm getting dive-bombed by these seagulls!"
After serving as a consultant on the show, survival expert Mark Weinert told the Times,
For instance, in one episode that Weinert worked on, Grylls supposedly built a raft
using only natural materials that he found around him, like hibiscus twine, palm leaves,
and bamboo.
However, Weinert said that he personally worked with a team of builders to put the raft together;
then it was taken apart so Grylls could be filmed putting it together on camera.
In addition to Mark Weinert, Grylls and his crew often brought on other survival experts
as consultants on Man vs. Wild.
There was nothing shady about that in particular, as long as they weren't doing Grylls' work
for him.
But on at least one occasion, a consultant later revealed that this was exactly what
was going on.
Nick Vroomans worked with Grylls on an episode of Man vs. Wild in western Australia.
Vroomans told The Herald Sun that while he enjoyed his experience working on the show
and thought that Grylls was a good person overall, viewers should know that the show
was predominantly scripted.
Vroomans also explained that he was often responsible for building Grylls' shelters
and finding him animals to eat; in this episode, it was snakes.
Admitting he was disappointed by the final cut of the episode, Vroomans added,
Les Stroud is the host of the show Survivorman, which had a similar premise to Man vs. Wild,
but Stroud insists that his show was a much more realistic picture of what it's like to
survive in the wild, and Man vs. Wild was basically a sham.
Stroud is not a big fan of Grylls, and he made this very clear in a Reddit AMA in 2013.
He stated that many of the survival skills that Grylls had "taught" on the show would
actually not be very helpful.
For example, Stroud singled out an episode in which Grylls was shown squeezing drinking
water from elephant dung, something Stroud claims would be impossible unless the crew
specifically soaked it with water beforehand.
"That is a first."
Moral of the story?
Man vs. Wild shouldn't be seen as a realistic, documentary-style show; it's entertainment
above anything else.
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