Helpful Television shows

Im just thinkin that there are a few shows out there that every survivalist should watch from time to time to pick up on new tricks and methods of survival. A few off the top of my head are.......

Survivorman
Man vs Wild
Mantracker
Do or Die

These are a few i think everyone should check out no matter where they live. Anybody know of any others??

I like to watch Ancient Almanac and related features on the History Channel. Often the ingenuity of older cultures than our own are detailed, and how modern problems were addressed with old solutions -- some of them very elegant solutions. Hygiene/sewage, water supplies/storage, engineering structures, cutting of stone, masonry, gears, weaponry etc. etc. I think it's fascinating, an often I get good ideas that could be very applicable to a modern society deprived of modern technology and power.

Ill agree with you on Survivorman. Stroud knows his stuff. Too bad its only for a week however, alot of time, at least in the early episodes, he really wasnt surviving, just biding his time.

I cant agree that Man vs Wild is at all helpful. I swear this guy is killing people with some of his antics and ideas. I watch it once in awhile for comic relief.

Anything on the outdoor channel seems to be fair as far as TV goes. Theres alot on there about hunting deer, which seems strange because deer really arent that smart. But if you can catch some of the pure shooting shows, ie American Rifleman, you can learn something.

However, at the end of the day, I will take a survival book over any TV show.

reply to post by awerdna


Anything by Ray Mear's is always useful to watch and extremely interesting, he has done episodes on bushcraft, survival, wild food and I think he even did one on the art of tracking.

Have a look on youtube for some of his episodes or buy some of his DVD's off amazon, theyre pretty cheap and I highly recommend them!

I forgot about Ray Mear even though I just watched one of his episodes on Wednesday. Thanks Death Kron.

Ray Mears programs are indeed facinating, his skill levels are almost godlike, for example in the episode where he walked about 15 miles cross country to meet up with some people in Canada, when he arrived he had not broken into a sweat and his boots were imacculately clean, I wish I was that good !!!!

Talking about TV shows I see the BBC is currently remaking and updating the original Terry Nation s story SURVIVORS, originally filmed and released in the 1970s it was a triggering factor for many young folks to become survivalists (including me).
Its to be shown this autumn on the BBc are follows the original story of a bio contagion wiping out 99% of the worlds people, and the survivors struggle to rebuild.
Its supposed to be more informative as positive than the original series ( which was quite depressing at times) but like Doomwatch, Day of the triffids and No Blade of Grass was typical of the 70s.

I hope the rumour about the cast being selected to represent diversity rather than simply picking the best actors for the job is untrue, But ffrom what I have seen on the BBC website its going to follow the same boring and innacurate casting types as they did with THE LAST TRAIN, IE A cockney a scot A geordie, A disabled person , an ethnic minority a child and a gay, with the absolutely predicable Eastenders/ Heartbeat/ Coronation st story lines best suited to chavs. Still the BBc of the 70s was equally preoccupied with the casts of dramas in that time always having the bad guys as working class, the exentrics came from the upper classes,. and the heros were all middle england public school and grammar school types. Should be interesting to se what they do with Nations best works.

[edit on 5-10-2008 by Northern Raider]

There used to be a really great one back-in-the-day in Australia.

"Bush Tucker Man"

Yeah!

I used to always watch it as a kid... I probably don't remember anything practical from it, but it was pretty awesome.

There was a few others I used to watch, "Malcolm in the dessert" or something along those lines.

Shows like that aren't really made in Australia anymore, which is odd given the vastness of unpopulated areas.

[edit on 5-10-2008 by mattguy404]

Originally posted by mattguy404
There used to be a really great one back-in-the-day in Australia.

"Bush Tucker Man"

Yeah!

Yeah Major Les Hiddens was absolutely brilliant in that series, far more down to earth than most of the other crap such as Survivorman and Bear Gryls, His idea of printing pictures of edible plants on the back of maps was truly great. Being able to pick up a map of an area and find good quality photos of plants that actually grew in that maps area of coverage has saved loads of lives. And Hiddins is a really nice guy according to some squaddies I know who met him when attached to the Aussie army.

I dont know if any of the UK readers can remember but, there was a 4/5 part series back in the 1980's made by Channel 4 called Survivors or Survival. It covered sea, desert, jungle, arctic etc. I had these on video tape for long time till my GF of the time 'overtaped' them.

There was also a good series about the Royal Marine Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre which showed mountain/arctic skills in use.

Incidently John 'Lofty' Wiseman is about to have a DVD released sometime soon that will be available to buy via the web.