Out of the Wild: The Alaska Experiment

If you are looking for high drama, heavy handed directing and "intense survival", then sure this may not be for you.

However, if you are looking for a show that shys away from the crowd, electing for a slower pace. Then you have found your place

This veristic approach to the survival genre brings a breath or fresh air. No professionals. No machismo needed. Just 9 strangers with little to no experience in the great outdoors, embarking on a backpacking journey together.

Come for the scenery and stay for the adventure. The ordinary nature of the cast and slower pace of the real wild are why this show shines. Perhaps this may not make for the most thrilling experience, but if that's what you are looking for here, you missed the point entirely.

I mean, really. I have watched several of the Alaska/Siberia survival and live off the land shows, and this one is painful to put it mildly. Why choose the worst decisions in spite of your meager, but straightforward training? I guess to make the show more thrilling..or whatever. Anyway,it is neither.

This show is predictable and pedestrian. I really don't know what else to say about this yawner of a mess. Of course, Americans will probably eat up this miserable excuse for a survival jerk off. What is the point of survival if you ignore all of the basic advice and common sense? I don't have anything else to say about this mess.

Avoid.

I loved this program. I have a lot of time on my hands right now so after watching it, I watched it again! I like the "Survivor" TV show because it is great for portraying human nature so well, especially the less virtuous aspects of greed, competitiveness, egocentricity, betrayal, etc. This experiment gave the people involved the opportunity to do what we all have the capacity to do - unite, cooperate and care for each other - and challenge ourselves to be better people than ever before. I found it to be very inspirational. The best part of all was that there was no big monetary prize, just the great sense of accomplishment at having achieved a really difficult journey.

Looking forward to hopefully seeing more programming like this - It would be nice if network TV could carry a show like this but evidently not everyone thinks this type of show is so interesting - no glamor, no big drama, too real!

I hate to say it, because I was looking forward to this show, but it makes for really bad television. The basic premise is intriguing enough on paper: Send a group of nine every day people into Alaska to make a trek across the harsh landscape with nothing but their wits, a camera crew, and some shelters with very little supplies placed strategically along the way. The only problem is that the result is, well, incredibly boring.

Nothing happens. The group members can essentially quit the show when they've had enough and can't go on, and this turns the show into a knock-off of the infamous reality show, Survivor. It stops being about survival in the wild, and starts being about who is going to quit next. Most of the "tasks" they take part in to survive involve gathering wood, hunting and failing terribly, lighting fires, and complaining about the cold. Most of the drama centers around how miserable and frustrated they are, but most of it comes from the narrator because there's very little action taking place on screen.

The end result is basically a show that chronicles a miserable camping trip that nobody wants to be on, and it's about as exciting. If you're a reality junkie, you might want to check out an episode, but there's really no reason to watch more, as the people on the show are not very interesting and you'll probably find yourself feeling rather apathetic by the end of the first episode you watch.

I find it confusing someone would compare this to survivor yet claim this is the boring one of the two. Every time I tuned into survivor it was about silly little MTV style contests and sweaty people sitting around tiki torches and submitting and reading ballots of who should be "voted off". The survival was surviving other peoples' opinion of you. It was like a high school popularity contest. It couldn't get any more trendy and boring. I couldn't stand it.

Out of the Wild on the other hand is what Survivor was expected to be when we first heard of the concept. It is about those people who can actually survive out in the wilderness without succumbing to the elements. Those who can't survive are forced to discover their limits and phone home. The only differences between this and a real situation of being stranded and lost is they have the comfort of knowing they can quit and are sometimes given supplies along the way. I think the next one should be done with just their wits to keep them going and perhaps to make it easier on them not done when winter is approaching. I bet the cold was brutal on these people.