Customer Reviews:
 Make believe adventuring based on true life expertise May 1, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Bear Grylls is a real life adventurer and explorer, but the Born Survivor series is a strictly-for-TV distillation of his experiences, rather than a real life adventure. Grylls is the real deal; he's ex-Special Forces, the youngest man to climb Everest, has come back from being close to crippled after a parachuting accident and takes on terrifying challenges like crossing the Atlantic in an open boat. So if you want to know more about those kind of genuine adventures you need to read his books.
Born Survivor takes Grylls and a TV crew and dumps them somewhere inhospitable so that Grylls can show off the survival skills which might just save your life, were you to find yourself hurled out of an aeroplance in the middle of the Sahara. It's meant to be entertaining, and it certainly is. It's not meant to be hard factual TV, and the people who've criticised previous shows for 'cheating' probably needed a wee reality check themselves. Of course he's not on his own; there are two cameras and a helicopter whirling around! But even with a safety net, the extreme situations demonstrated can be quite threatening; several members of the TV crew had to be medivac'd from the Sahara situation after heat stroke. This may not be 100% real, but it certainly ain't easy.
If you've not seen any Bear Grylls programmes before then think of a leaner, potentially meaner Ray Mears with added attitude and you've just about hit the target. If you have seen previous Grylls shows then you may well find many of the subjects covered in the first installment of the Sahara disc a bit repetitive -- plenty of the stuff about how to keep cool, travelling at night, searching for water and so has been done before.
The second episode strikes new territory, though, and was really interesting. Grylls teams up with a Berber tribesman to learn from their desert survival techniques; tackles snakes, eats yet more ghastly things; finds out how to use a dead camel for food, water and (ugh) shelter; and takes on a simply awesome climb to get out of the desert and into the foothills.
Grylls is an engaging presenter who is completely in his element, scrambling in and out of quicksand or turning some gruesome bug into a light lunch. If you can accept that the situations are set up for the cameras, and can appreciate his enthusiasm and expertise nonetheless, then you'll enjoy the whole Born Survivor series. After watching the Sahara scenario I'm keen to see the rest.
If you really only want to see true-life survivalists then this obviously won't float your boat -- but actually, how much real life TV survivalism is there?
Oh, and my rental version was only two 50 min programmes and no special features. Boohoo.
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