Eight bushcraft experts with differing but complementary experience (and all tough as nails) are made a tribe and dumped in Bulgaria.
Complaints about nothing happening reveal more about the reviewer than the series - after all they are learning to survive in an environment which is new to all of them. They are Brits/Commonwealth and Americans, and whilst having experience elsewhere around the globe they needed, obviously, to read and discover the land in which they find themselves, and whilst experts, obviously do not live in the wild with only stone tools in their day to day lives. You would have thought that folk watching Attenborough and the like would have made people realise most hunts are not successful, and humans are just animals afterall.
This leads me onto to one of my criticisms - the fixation on the 'hunt' - the 'narrative' being focussed on a successful large game hunt to the detriment of showing the gathering, scavenging and processing of more regular sustenance was a little disappointing. This might have been because of certain participants' desire to use the skills they've spent a lifetime developing and of which they are proud, mixed with a wee bit of masculine energy (I was delighted with who eventually did take down and process the meal), or due to the producers and editors thinking this is how you bring excitment and a story arc, but I felt this was a missed opportunity to shed light on the probable reality of stone age people. The show lightly touched on producing baskets etc., to collect and store food, it mentioned that the fish trapped in natural pools became catchable, the importance of recognising and extracting different carbs, eating maggots with your meat - obviously risk and insurance isn't going to allow people to actually scavenge a carcass - but all this important stuff was just mentioned in passing coz the 'hunt' was the thing. We were gatherers and scavengers (who occasionally had a successful hunt) and this series actually kinda shows/supports that hypothesis, but then chooses to retell the illusionary 'romantic' (for certain chaps especially) myth that early 'man' was a big old hunter of big old game.
This leads to my second criticism, and it may explain the first. The series is only three episodes. They were out there for a month so you'd have thought at the very least an episode for a week would make sense, but having such a short run means, I feel, that a lot of the learning that will have come out of this kind of experimental archaeology was left on the cutting room floor. As a number of the participants are academics or work with experimental archaeologists I'm sure learning will get back into those institutions but I felt a bit robbed at only three eps (especially given what I'm sure was missed out, as above)
All in all a great series, with knowledgable and likable participants, that is less reality TV and more a filmed experiment. I'd love to have a go at something like this, but am far too weak and unskilled so it was great to live vicariously (for a brief time)! I'd be interested in a follow up on what they've taken back to their practice and research since.
Complaints about nothing happening reveal more about the reviewer than the series - after all they are learning to survive in an environment which is new to all of them. They are Brits/Commonwealth and Americans, and whilst having experience elsewhere around the globe they needed, obviously, to read and discover the land in which they find themselves, and whilst experts, obviously do not live in the wild with only stone tools in their day to day lives. You would have thought that folk watching Attenborough and the like would have made people realise most hunts are not successful, and humans are just animals afterall.
This leads me onto to one of my criticisms - the fixation on the 'hunt' - the 'narrative' being focussed on a successful large game hunt to the detriment of showing the gathering, scavenging and processing of more regular sustenance was a little disappointing. This might have been because of certain participants' desire to use the skills they've spent a lifetime developing and of which they are proud, mixed with a wee bit of masculine energy (I was delighted with who eventually did take down and process the meal), or due to the producers and editors thinking this is how you bring excitment and a story arc, but I felt this was a missed opportunity to shed light on the probable reality of stone age people. The show lightly touched on producing baskets etc., to collect and store food, it mentioned that the fish trapped in natural pools became catchable, the importance of recognising and extracting different carbs, eating maggots with your meat - obviously risk and insurance isn't going to allow people to actually scavenge a carcass - but all this important stuff was just mentioned in passing coz the 'hunt' was the thing. We were gatherers and scavengers (who occasionally had a successful hunt) and this series actually kinda shows/supports that hypothesis, but then chooses to retell the illusionary 'romantic' (for certain chaps especially) myth that early 'man' was a big old hunter of big old game.
This leads to my second criticism, and it may explain the first. The series is only three episodes. They were out there for a month so you'd have thought at the very least an episode for a week would make sense, but having such a short run means, I feel, that a lot of the learning that will have come out of this kind of experimental archaeology was left on the cutting room floor. As a number of the participants are academics or work with experimental archaeologists I'm sure learning will get back into those institutions but I felt a bit robbed at only three eps (especially given what I'm sure was missed out, as above)
All in all a great series, with knowledgable and likable participants, that is less reality TV and more a filmed experiment. I'd love to have a go at something like this, but am far too weak and unskilled so it was great to live vicariously (for a brief time)! I'd be interested in a follow up on what they've taken back to their practice and research since.
