The Ugly Truth About "Man vs. Wild"?

I've never believed that "reality TV" --in any of its many guises--is "real." But there was something about the unflappable nature of Bear Grylls, a former member of the SAS and the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest and return alive, that made me want to believe. Remember the episode where he squeezed elephant dung into his dry mouth for the moisture? Or when he ripped flesh off a dead Zebra carcus with his teeth and ate it? So am I the only fan who is crushed to find out that his show Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel might not be as wild as it seems? Say it ain't so, Bear. From the Hollywood Reporter:

Grylls is the star of "Man vs. Wild," an increasingly popular series on Discovery Channel that recently concluded its second season. Each episode he parachutes into a different uninhabited territory without a map or much else in the way of camping equipment and spends several days trying to find his way back to civilization.

But this British adventurer is now the subject of an investigation by U.K.'s Channel 4, which already has confirmed that Grylls checked into motels on a few occasions when he was depicted on TV having slept under the stars. Other allegations have been made suggesting that the crew that records Grylls in action isn't as hands-off as it might appear to viewers.

Knowing what I now know, I don't think I could ever watch "Wild" with the same zeal again. Naive as it now seems, I bought the notion that Grylls really was roughing it. If he cut corners here or there, what's to stop fans from doubting every facet of the show?

Discovery has made vague allusions to moving forward with the series, but repackaged with greater "transparency." What exactly that means will be an interesting question for the network, which hasn't had a headache like this since Steve Irwin decided to dangle his own infant child within the reach of a hungry crocodile.

[Photo credit: Landov]