attholib The first episode looks really promising.. until several situations that seems totally staged/fake like when the cowboy fired his gun to a fish (obviously a dead fish) in the boat etc. These things made me question whether or not the show misleads its viewers like some of the other survival shows have been known to do.This doubt about the reality presented in the show disappointed me because I had high expectation on this show. And while many things on television are misleading, if not straight lies, it's nice sometimes to think that someone is different than all the rest. From what I found, I no longer trust the show.

n-m-bertin The first season was quite enjoyable, until you realize it's all fake. People can't hike the distances announced in such a short period of time, they don't have that many close encounters with bears, they don't paddle down a glacier stream and stop a couple of meters before a moulin... The worst was the 2nd season, with soldiers lying through their teeth "I'm doing it for my country" yeah right... mountaineers claiming you have to respect the wilderness, while they're doing a blatant staged show, acting as if they ignored danger and all, taking ridiculous routes and risks, not eating enough... Tyler's disappearance was pathetic, with hours in freezing water (allegedly of course) and a "lucky" (staged) rescue. This kind of show is dangerous : it makes young people think you can survive by being absolutely reckless in the wilderness, all these guys are Bear Grylls on steroids, and there's NO warning telling people to not reproduce this, that this is staged and over the top. They could have done a good show by making it 100% real, instead they chose the showy fake entertainment path. Just by looking at Alaskan maps you can see the distances announced are fake, and when danger arise, the cameramen stay still, clearly in the know that this was gonna happen, as it's scripted. Please avoid watching this, or we'll have countless clones, and uneducated kids and teens will try to replicate this and many accidents will occur...

don-brown-945-840115 I realize reality shows are scripted, but this one is disingenuous and insulting to real outdoorsmen. In one episode the "mountaineers" catch a 200 pound halibut from over 100 feet underwater with nothing more than a fishing line and an old wood ski. I'm an outdoorsman, an avid fisherman, and I've been halibut fishing off the coast of Alaska when I was in the US Navy. A fish that size would be difficult to catch, let alone reel in, even with all the down-riggers we had on our boat. I once caught a 30 lb. Salmon while fishing Lake Superior as a teenager and it took me over an hour to reel him in on a pretty nice "big water" rod & reel. I'm insulted that they act like this guy reeled that fish in with his hands. An episode or so later one of the teams fashioned a "gun" from a shotgun shell and a snowshoe in order to kill a squirrel. A firing pin needs to precisely hit the primer in order for it to fire (I was a Gunner's Mate in the Navy prior becoming a SAR Swimmer). No way they were able to line that up. Again insulted! Then it's the ridiculous photo-shop that was done in the second to the last episode when the military guys are going down the glacier luge. Finally there is the last episode where "coincidentally" all three teams converge at the river at the same exact time at the same exact spot 15 hours into the journey (ideal if you're the cameraman). Then, somehow, even though a military guy capsized and was stranded up-river for well over an hour while the endurance team was paddling down river, the military guys caught up with them and all three teams made it to the base of the "volcano" at the same exact time. You couldn't script it any better even if you scripted.... wait a minute, we've been bamboozled!I realize the producers don't care because I actually watched the whole season, but it truly became something my wife and I watched as a comedy to make fun of more than there was any suspense or like these guys were in actual danger. My wife would say (sarcastically) "oh my god, do you think he's going to make it?" and I'd laugh because at the most perilous moments, in the most treacherous conditions, the cameraman and the boom- mic guy seemed to be able to endure just fine. One time the endurance guys were baffled at how they could cross the raging river, I said to my wife "why don't they just ask the cameraman, who is clearly standing on the other side of the river filming, how he got over there!" Most often the camera man was filming from in front of the team while these "Endurance Athletes", "Mountaineers", "Woodsman" and "Military" guys struggled up the hill or down a ravine or across a river. You know who is the Ultimate Alaskan Survivor? It's not the Military Team, or the Endurance Athletes, or the Mountaineers, or the Woodsmen! It's the cameraman and the boom-mic guy! I told my wife I'd love to offer up a reward for these four groups to do this again, for real, without a dead halibut being put on a line, without photo-shopped pack-rafts going down a luge or without a Kodiak Bear charging a bird on a branch that they simulate to seem as if the bear was going after one of the guys about 200 yards further down the river. I do see Dallas Seavey won the 2014 Iditarod. Nice to see him actually win something real! I'm not saying these guys aren't fit and didn't get a workout during the show, but it's a bit like watching Pro Wrestling. You might be the Ultimate Alaskan Survivor, but that's like saying you're the WWF Heavyweight Champion of the World. The only difference (Dallas) is you didn't get paid millions and didn't have to do it in your underwear.P.S. As a SAR Swimmer (Search and Rescue) in the US NAVY… FACT: it takes a bit more than 10 minutes to recover from stage-1 hypothermia fellas. All I'm saying is the demographic your gearing your show towards are people like me (outdoors guys/gals). Remove the BS and silliness from it and it would have actually been a pretty entertaining show.

anthonyk747 Season 1 was a pure test for the show, since it had been a new release, so rules were different in Season 1, than in Season 2. In Season 1, it wasn't a competition, there wasn't any prize, and everybody could change their group throughout the journey. Plus, everybody was given 72 hours to reach the end of the leg.But, in Season 2, they realized a lot of changes that needed to be made to improve the effectiveness and challenge of it; thus, improving the show and Alaskan experience that was gained. They upped the stakes by adding four specific teams, each with an orientation around them (The Mountaneers, The Military, The Woodsmen, and The Endurance). They also reduced the time to reach the of the leg down to 60 hours, but provided a bear-barrel at the end, filled with goodies to help them on the next leg (protein, nourishment, etc.).Overall, this show is nothing less than a thrill-ride for every survival enthusiast out there! Whether you're in the show, fighting the competition, or you're watching the series from home, you get just as much a feeling of fear, adrenaline, hunger pains, etc. They're doing all of this for the Grand Prize of the Title of: "Best Alaskan Survivor." That's it! No cash, no new car, just a Title to show off your Alaskan survival skills!