Get Out Alive (reality/survival show)

Cafe Society
1

(Hello. My name is StarvingButStrong. I’m a reality show junkie.)

Setup: ten teams of two contestants, 8 ‘journeys’ full of physical ‘survive in the wilderness’ type challenges to complete, one team goes each week, winner gets a half-million. Host is some guy named Bear (something) who I’m apparently supposed to know for whatever reason but I don’t.

Anyway, I found the show somewhat refreshing. It’s not a race (mostly) the teams are supposed to cooperate and help keep each other alive/moving/accomplishing the tasks. Like on the journey to their first stop they had to ford an icy stream, retrieve/butcher/eat an already killed deer, hike and tote it through some rough ground and set up a camp.

Oh, and the next morning one member of each team had to drink a bottle filled with a mix of muddy water and their own urine. :eek:

Then there’s a Tribal Council and Bear guy (who spends the show observing what they do) eliminates whoever he feels was worst/least cooperative/least likely to really survive in the wilderness.

I enjoyed it enough tune in again.

Anybody else watch?

2

I generally don’t like reality shows, but this wasn’t too bad.
They really should have smoked the leftover vensison (or made venison jerky - not sure if there was enough time for that)

Brian

3

I think putting “Siberia” right after was a stroke of genius.

4

It was maddening and revolting. Why on earth would you drink a canteen of boiled piss when you’re camping next to a RIVER!? Just an idiotic stunt for shock value.

Letting all that venison go to waste was a sin. Wonder what they did to “predator-proof” the area when a bunch of morons leave a rock covered in meat next to their tents?

5

Wow. Wowie wowie wow. Wowza.

I’ll be the first to say it…this looks good. Really, really good. This is the show Stars Earn Stripes should have been. Here, let me run down what I like a helluva lot about this:

  • Progress is earned. Not granted by dumb luck, or stupid voting blocs, or making the right alliance with the right person at the right time, or your best competition taken out by bunchup crap because that’s the only way the producers know how to keep anyone watching to the end. The only thing left to chance is who gets what job, and none of them are creampuff assignments. No goldbricking or cruising or coasting, it’s put up or shut up from beginning to end.

  • Bear Grylls (you don’t know how many times I nearly put down “Giles” :slight_smile: ) is hands-down the best reality TV host I’ve ever seen. Mature, brilliant, doesn’t take crap from anybody. He’s one of the few hosts I actually enjoy listening to. His insights thus far have all been completely spot-on. Jeff Probst and Phill Keoghaga-whatever are okay at what they do, but they’re just referees; they’re pretty much just there. With Grylls, you really get the sense that he’s on top of things, and I couldn’t argue with his first elimination one bit.

  • The contestants, NONE of whom are jerks or slobs or cretins or any of the self-aggrandizing trash that plague other shows of this ilk. For something like Survivor or Hell’s Kitchen, you need hellraisers to keep things from getting boring, but Get Out Alive is hell enough as it is. So no screamfests, no profanity-laced tirades, no petty bickering, no empty threats. I could get used to that.

  • Consistency matters. Anyone who tries to play the rock bottom plus one game here is in for a rude surprise. Right off the bat Grylls demanded contribution and sound judgment, and he’s not the type to quickly forgive big blunders. As soon as the worst goes, whoever was second worst is the next on the block. THAT’S how last man standing is supposed to work, not some goddam roulette game where if you land anywhere other than single zero you’re golden.

  • Real hardship. Survivor takes place in backwards areas, but for the most part they’re just hungry and dirty and incredibly bored. On Get Out Alive, if you don’t make it through the freezing river or untamed forest quickly, or you mess up food preparation, or you can’t get a fire going, you suffer. Which quickly leads into a death spiral where you can’t get anything accomplished and have to go. Only the strong survive, only the strongest will win. As it should be.

This and American Ninja Warrior? Pass the popcorn, it’s going to be a fun summer!

6

Wow, someone actually made a Survivor reality show. Only about a decade and a half late, but still.

And Bear Grylls is a noted survivalist, and has long had his own show about surviving in the wild.

7

Wow, are we watching a different show ? I though it was awful, full of all the reality TV cliches. Spend 5 minutes on the “point” of the show and 25 minutes on product placement and drama. Every… single… thing is a “life threatening emergency”. And OMG, will they make it across the 5 inch puddle, complete with camera angles to make it look like a lake full of sharks with laser beams ? Definitely no 2nd episode for me.

8

It’s alright. I wish it was more open ended - not so structured - but it’s an interesting subject for a competition. It has been fairly light on all of the stupid human drama crap that all of reality TV is all about. Basically, reality shows should be more like an extreme game show than a soap opera, and this is mostly on the right side of that line. I like the subject and I like Bear Grylls so I’ll give it a few weeks.

9

I’m digging it, though I have objections to the latest eviction.

Last week was freaky when that woman who had been sick was staring into the void during the eviction meeting. The completely blank stare the camera caught before the quick cutaway was unsettling; I was legitimately disturbed. So tossing her team out was the right call, no question.

This week, however, he tossed a team who hypothetically wouldn’t make it out alive instead of the team who literally wouldn’t make it out alive. That whole situation pissed me off, actually. First when Bear yelled at the obstacle team leading the obstacle “Why am I doing your jobs?!” Hey dickhead, those people you’re saving? You’re doing their jobs. If they physically can’t handle an obstacle, then having them on the obstacle team is a complete and utter failure on your part as the show runner/creator.

What was supposed to happen, exactly? Half the obstacle team was supposed to carry the other half of the obstacle team and everyone else just does their own thing? That runs contrary to the whole premise. So this episode turned me off to the whole “draw a knife” aspect of randomly assigning jobs, and thus turns me off to the premise of the show.

Either have only capable people and hand out jobs randomly, or hand out jobs based on ability. Randomly assigning jobs to incompetent people is asinine.

I get that the bad attitude chick was an anchor on the whole group, and if the older black couple had been able to swim at all then sure, get rid of Sniffles McCriesalot in a heartbeat. But Bear seriously dropped the ball when he left the drowning team in the game.

Oh, and Bear? Go fuck yourself with your “Faith gives you the strength of 10 people” bullshit or whatever that stupid line was. How exactly did their faith help them with that swim?

10

Faith helps you keep fighting when all you want to do is quit. It is a powerful motivational force.

11

My point was that it didn’t do anything to help prevent them getting washed out to sea in the current. Maybe this episode wasn’t the best time to invoke the “faith makes you stronger” card, since the people with faith were dead weight and clearly the weakest link.

12

Get Out Alive is on. Better drink my own piss.

13

Sorry I’m late to the party this week…TV got tied up for a while, long story.

Just so we’re clear, I’m really, really liking this. The elements here have been used in other shows: Survivor, Fear Factor, and Stars Earn Stripes, to name a few, but here everything is integral to the overall challenge, not just a one-off gimmick. You have to eat gross food because that’s what available, and if you’re starving, you can’t do anything. You have to have stamina and an iron will for the hard marches, or else you get left behind, possibly get hurt. You have to help others because you’ll need them to help you in the future. Most critically, you HAVE to make it to the feast pit at least once, possibly two or three times, to gain the energy and confidence to go the distance. Success begets success. Hang out on the bottom rung, and you are in real, serious danger, and unlike Gordon Ramsey, Bear Grylls doesn’t give a damn about cute drama. There is no question whatsoever in my mind that only the best of the best is going to win this, and that alone puts it ahead of pretty much any other reality show you can name.

Anywise, to address someone’s concerns:

Ellis Dee - So you’re upset because Grylls didn’t think the way you did? Uh, no offense, but if that’s a dealbreaker, reality TV really isn’t for you.

First off, random assignments are a part of the challenge. They’re not supposed to do only the one thing they’re good at. If this were a Boy Scout expedition, that would make sense, but it wouldn’t be at all fair for a contest where no one is supposed to get comfortable. They went in with their eyes open, and they have to take their lumps. Anyway, I’ve seen the tasks, and none of them look all that simple to me, so I have no dog in this fight.

The elimination? It was a toss-up. He didn’t like ANYONE this week. Since there were three teams that royally screwed the pooch, it simply came down to which one he didn’t want to deal with anymore.

In that light, Alicia and Spencer was an easy choice. Last week Grylls made it clear that if one member of the team is useless, the team is useless. And for the life of me, I can’t remember a time someone suffered a faster, harder, more catastrophic collapse than Alicia. First she started crying over an incredibly minor problem (yo, whaddya think the fire is for?), then she faltered badly in the reward challenge, and then, when called on her negativity, she whines about being mistreated. And of course, just to make sure the coffin nail really goes in nice and tight, Spencer has to dish up some horsepuckey about her being “ganged up on”. Sorry, guys, but “You’re so meeeeean!” doesn’t cut it here.

Wilson and Robin became dead weights. Ryan and Madeline didn’t lift a finger to help that. Grylls acknowledged this; he didn’t brush it off. But none of them were sucking all the air out of the room, and this time…THIS time…that was just enough to save their hides.

Hey, if you’re going to blame anything, blame the ironclad one-at-a-time elimination system. Sometimes it comes down to the bottom of the barrel vs. one inch above the bottom of the barrel. Rest assured that none of the four can get complacent, nor do they have much of a prayer of winning this thing.

Oh, and the exact quote was “Faith CAN give you the strength of ten men.” It remains to be seen whether it will. (My wild, uninformed guess: no. :slight_smile: )

14

Agreed; push them outside of their comfort zone. But that’s a far cry from literally incapable.

It was way better/funnier than that: She started whining and crying about being labeled as having a bad attitude. Ha! For me, at least, that was a case of Cartman-esque “Yes, cry; your tears are so delicious…”

I never said dealbreaker, btw. Love the show. Just this particular episode was clearly a fuckup by Bear on multiple levels.

15

Sounds promising if I can skip all the show bits and get to the survival parts. For my money the best survival-type show I’ve ever seen is Survivorman and Dual Survival. No camera crew, the guy carries his own camera. If you see a far shot of him walking through a field, he carried the camera up the hill, set it up, walked past, then went back and got it. You can really feel the isolation on that show.

16

Aaaand, Robin and Wilson avoid the buzzards for another day. Hard to argue with this one, though I’m still a bit astonished by how quickly Donna bottomed out. What, the grubs weren’t enough of a hint of what the food was going to be like?

The first season of any reality TV shows serves as a crash course of what it takes to succeed and, more importantly, what to avoid. The big lesson has already shown itself here: Don’t take someone with any big, obvious flaws. Weak-willed, overemotional, out of shape, no muscle, cowardly, delusional, anything that’s going to hold you back. Because the wild is going to magnify it a thousandfold, and then you have ZERO chance of winning. No pulling a Lee DeWyze or Amber Brchich or Helio Castroneves. You both have to be really good!

I’m starting to really like Chris and Jeff. They’ve looked very strong in just about everything, and although they didn’t win this week’s challenge, they made it a contest (which is more than I could say for anyone else). Once Robin and Wilson inevitably go down, all they need is a bit of luck and they’re off to the races. Royce and Kyle and the father-son team (don’t remember the names) look okay, but we’ll see how good they really are when the challenges and hunger become more intense.

Well, if nothing else, the ones that are left seem to be getting better. Snacking on Spanish roots and starting a fire in under 30 seconds? That’s worth at least a golf clap in my book.

17

Agreed.

I think the father and son team are much better at the reward challenge than the actual jobs, so I expect them to be the first team out once it’s down to only good teams. Well, they’ll probably win a reward or two, so the first time they don’t win reward after it’s down to the good teams.

I’m also impressed with Chris & Jeff, though they have been on the hotseat once or twice. (Jumping into the freezing water with all your clothes on.)

At this point my favorite team is probably the couple from Alabama.

18

I have to admit I liked this last episode.

The redheaded girl (Louie?) really impressed me when it was revealed that the eggs had fully formed ducklings inside. She said something like “Hey, we’re having duck for dinner, that’s better than eggs!”

Being able to find humor in your situation is a huge factor in survival. She’s a tougher than she looks, and she looks pretty tough!

19

Finally got around to commenting on this week.

Robin and Wilson finally run out of divine favors and take a hike. Pretty much a no-brainer. Chris and Ryan and Paul and Madeline slipped up a bit in their tasks, but it was nothing compared to the married couple’s seemingly endless slow burn. How do you just flat-out ignore Grylls’ instructions?

I said that this season would be a crash course, and we’re getting some hard lessons driven home. Here’s one: If you’re going to team up with a woman, don’t choose your giggly daughter fresh out of high school, or your willowy, blushing fiancee, or your mom with the bum ankle and agoraphobia. Go with your rock climbing triathlete sister. Or your forest ranger aunt. Or, heck, your ex-girlfriend who just started her fifth year with the Coast Guard. Someone strong and tough and used to grueling outdoor conditions. The wild doesn’t give a damn about chivalry, so ditch the damsel-in-distress act.

Anyway, now that all the hopeless teams are out, something I haven’t done in a long time…my personal power rankings!

  1. Royce & Kyle - Did a great job winning the challenge (the closest one yet). Haven’t had any stumbles I’m aware of and seem to be hitting their stride at just the right time. It’s funny; listening to them, they seemed so…so non-serious, and yet they’ve pulled through time and again. Definitely now the team to beat.

  2. Chris & Jeff - Still fiercely competitive, minor slipups aside, but the second-place-is-the-first-loser aspect of reality TV has to be wearing on them. They’ve come a close second two challenges in a row, and it would’ve been three if Alicia hadn’t bottomed out at the worst possible time. They have all the tools to win this; what they need now is some good old-fashioned luck. The next challenge will tell the story.

  3. Jim & Austin (you have no idea how long it took me to remember those names) - A surprisingly strong duo, all things considered. Did a great job winning last week’s challenge, and I’m very impressed they got the fire going with such primitive equipment and under those conditions. The darkhorse.

  4. Lucky & Louie - Bless 'em, their hearts are in the right place, they never mean any harm, and they work pretty hard. That was fine when they were up against weaklings and whiners and schmucks, but it’s crunch time now. I can see them sneaking past one of the top teams, but all three, no way. They’ve been a pleasure to watch and I won’t be happy to see them go.

  5. Madeline & Ryan - Give them credit; they didn’t let their huge blunder from two weeks ago derail them. Still, I get the feeling that they’ve reached the point where the challenge is just too much.

One final note: There’s an old saying, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” It’s telling that the two best teams are the “best friends” ones; going in with someone you know is strong and rugged and has a great attitude and whom you can trust with your life is a huge advantage. So huge, in fact, that Grylls may have to consider putting some major restrictions for later contests. We seriously could have a “Richard Hatch*”, a team that wins by using exploits in the game the producers weren’t aware of at the time.

  • Heck, may as well test the waters with this now that “rock bottom plus one” is pretty much played out. :slight_smile:
20

It’s not they’re not related, it’s that both team members are young males. A pair of brothers would do fine.

If Bear gets a second season I’d like to see a rule that all teams must be coed. Such a rule worked fine for the Eco Challenge.