In the past, I have been critical of shows exaggerating the bear threat in Alaska, randomly cutting between videos of bears and scenes of young people drinking cheap beer or the reality universe trying and failing to sustain two bear hunting programs at the same exact time.
But for the first time ever I was actually slightly afraid for the safety of the cast and crew of "Ultimate Survival Alaska," and it was because of bears. I know this sounds stupid. Mostly because if someone got mauled by a bear during filming, the Internet would have discovered it. But this week there were so many up-close bear encounters involving sows and cubs that I actually thought someone might get into some real trouble on Kodiak Island.
The best bear encounter (to clarify, by "best" I always mean "best TV," not best in terms of what to actually do if you are in that situation) occurred when the Military Team attracts a bear while fishing. The bear starts to walk toward them, and they decide the best course of action is to jump off a waterfall to escape. Who does that? They also just left their camera guy hanging out with the bear.
Seriously, there should be a TV show about the camera men and women of reality TV. I think "Deadliest Catch" has done some specials on the filming process, but I want more. Either that or they should abolish the "fourth wall" and show the cast making sure their camera man didn't get mauled by a bear after they jumped off a waterfall. Maybe it's just me, but seeing interactions with production crews actually makes shows more real and interesting.
Finally, there a few themes that I've brought up before about this show that have been reinforced this episode.
1. Cluck is, once again, the nicest person on the planet. He stayed up all night with his teammate Kasha because she was afraid of bears. Maybe it's just the Southern accent and that I'm still sad he didn't get his scarecrow hat back.
2. They are really strict about rules this year. Dallas lost his pack last episode, and he's still in the same clothes, packless. He decided to weave himself a pack out of roots to carry some basic stuff and then tie it to his back with some string. It will be interesting to see if they let him go on a glacier without gear.
3. No one besides Marty and Tyler (of Team Alaska) can make it through a whole season without rolling their eyes at Marty and Tyler's crazy ideas. This episode they decided to build a sleeping platform in a tree to stay away from the bears. Their other teammate Vern did a hilarious eye roll and "OK," as though he was their mother and he just wanted them to shut up.
Now for some news, the bear fascination continues on The Sportsman Channel (that brought us such gems as "Amazing America with Sarah Palin" and the tagline "Red, Wild and Blue") with a new hunting show where they drop some dude named Mike Stroff off in Alaska to hunt for caribou and brown bear. It's a four-part miniseries called "Savage Outdoors," and it started on Tuesday.
Finally, there is a strange thing happening here at the ADN. It seems like just about every time an episode of "Alaskan Bush People" airs, Web traffic spikes. This week's Web traffic had a huge jump when a year-old episode about the Brown family vacating their lot because of "gunfire" aired on the East Coast. I think people must be sitting at home thinking, "this can't be real" and then Google brings them right here.
Emily Fehrenbacher lives in Anchorage, where she reviews Alaska reality TV and can be reached at play@alaskadispatch.com (subject line: Reality Check).