Going through the television guide on clicker to watch TV today, got me wondering whether the Survival Reality Shows were going too far for the sake of entertainment.  Television offers many different survival type reality programs. They claim that by watching the star of the show endure hardships and challenges, viewers can learn how to survive in the wilderness with few resources. These lessons are certainly entertaining, and most of the advice they offer is good. However, the average viewer should never attempt some of the techniques that are taught.

Bear Grylls in Man Vs Wild enjoying "fresh meat"

On a recent episode of Man Woman Wild, Mykel Hawke showed his wife, Ruth Engsland, how to boil water using a stone that had been heated in their campfire. The water dish that they used had been fashioned from a large piece of sea kelp. In another episode, Ruth learned to start a fire using a battery and steel wool. These are useful tips that the average person could use in a real life survival situation.

Cody Lundin and Dave Canterbury, stars of Dual Survival, have shown viewers how to help rescuers find them by leaving clues. They have also demonstrated techniques for capturing food and purifying water. Knowing these skills can be the difference between life and death.

Les “Survivor man” Stroud has offered many different ways of creating shelter from tree branches and vines. He has shown viewers how to find edible plants and insects. He also gives viewers insight to the emotions experienced while stranded alone in the wilderness.

No one has ever gone on a hike planning to get lost. Kayakers don’t expect to see their vessel float down the river, leaving them stranded miles from the nearest town. Nevertheless, these things do happen to hundreds of people every year. Knowing how to start a fire with no matches and how to make water safe to drink are valuable lessons that anyone can all learn from these survival shows.

Do these programs sometimes go too far for the sake of entertainment? The star of Man vs. Wild, Bear Grylls, seems to take a lot of risks in the name of survival. In one episode, Bear used sticks to climb down a well that was fifty feet deep. He made it to the bottom only to find that it was empty. He also had to be rescued from the well by his cameraman when his stick ladder broke. This situation must have been presented for the entertainment value and not practicality. After all, what is the point of getting to water in a deep well if you end up stuck inside the well? A person alone in the wilderness should never try something like this. Likewise, they should never go into a deep cave like Bear did in another episode. These actions would only make the situation worse. Rescuers have a hard enough time. No one should make it harder for them by ending up in a situation where they would be even harder to find.

Of all the survival personalities, Bear Grylls is the most dramatic. He will scale rock facings with only the tiniest finger holds. He has used jungle vines to descend seventy-five feet down a cliff. He has also used slippery rocks to get to the top of waterfalls. Though these techniques add excitement to the show, for the average person the risk of injury is far too great. Bear has even been injured a few times while filming Man vs. Wild. Most people are better off finding a different route, even if it takes several hours. An injury in the wilderness will leave you completely helpless, diminishing the chance of rescue. It is irresponsible for this show to depict these actions as a good method of survival.

All of these programs: Man vs. Wild, Survivorman, Dual Survival, and Man Woman Wild offer helpful life-saving advice. If you ever find yourself stranded in the wilderness, take these lessons with a grain of salt. Use your own logic and instinct to determine which techniques to use. Most are essential to getting home alive, but some of them are better left to the experts.

By M. A. Gallant

Gleeks unite! September 14th Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment releases the complete first season of GLEE on Blu-ray and DVD! You better believe there’s extras, here’s what series creator Ryan Murphy had to say about all of those wonderful extras you’ll find only on the  four-disc Blu-ray and seven-disc DVD set-

“The show started out as a comedy musical about the underdog in all of us and has blossomed, largely due to the incredible support and passion from the fans that have embraced the show…. When we developed the Blu-ray and DVD, we wanted to give those fans something special because they’ve been so great to us. There’s everything from a sing-along karaoke, to a behind-the-scenes look at our Madonna episode, to a dance lesson from our amazing choreographers. There’s even some all new Sue’s Corners which have never been seen before. It’s our ‘thank you’ to the Gleeks.”

If you haven’t seen an episode of GLEE yet then maybe these awards will help sway you- winner of the Golden Globe® for Best Television Series, Comedy or Musical. Winner! People’s Choice Award for Favorite New TV Comedy (Hello! That’s sayin’ somethin’ in a year that also debuted ABC’s Modern Family and NBC’s Community!) and winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Oustanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series (Again, they beat out Modern Family and Community!)

Here’s the official synopsis-

“GLEE follows an optimistic teacher who – against all odds and a malicious cheerleading coach – inspires McKinley High’s Glee Club to conquer the world one singing competition at a time.”

Goodness! I’m still thinkin’ about those special features! Why can’t the DVD’s be released next week?! What’re you looking forward to?

The 2010 MTV Movie awards airs live from the Gibson Ampitheater in Universal City, CA on Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 9pm EST.

Christina Aguilera is set to perform her new single “Not Myself Tonight.” The awards ceremony will be aired just a few days before her new album Bionic comes out in stores on June 8. The album will include collaborations with Sia, Tricky Stewart, Polow Da Don, Le Tigre, Hill & Switch, and Ladytron.

Aguilera holds the prestigious honor of being the only artist under the age of 30 that has been included in Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of the 100 greatest singers of all-time. She has won five Grammy Awards.

Presenters include Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Zac Efron, Jonah Hill, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Steve Carell, Miranda Cosgrove, Olympian Shaun White, Vanessa Hudgens, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and Russel Brand.

Actor/comedian Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recreation) will carry on hosting duties.

This year’s show features three entirely new categories:  Biggest Bad-ass Star, Best Scared-As-S**t Performance, and Global Superstar. Voting in previous years was domestic, only allowed by viewers living in the United States. However, this year voting will be done internationally for the Global Superstar category. International viewers can vote by vising their local MTV websites.

Fans chose the nominees between March 29 – April 9. The winner voting period will begin on May 12 and go through June 5. For one special category, Best Movie, voting will continue during the live taping.

Check out this sneak peak, where host Aziz Ansari watches The Hurt Locker in 4-D with Kristen Bell in his apartment:

Well, it’s official. ‘Supernatural’ surely doesn’t fear the reaper.

We’ve seen the heavenly host, manifestations of the seven deadly sins, most of the riders of the Apocalypse and Lucifer himself. Heck, a few weeks ago we got a hotel consortium of pagan gods. But tonight’s episode gave us a concept as character; Death, in the flesh, roaming the streets of Chicago and preempting a massive, apocalyptic disaster. And, it worked, in a number of perfectly creepy ways.

Julian Richings, whose gaunt, Ichabod Crane features and inhuman complexion target him naturally for roles like this, was nothing short of spellbinding. Channeling the kind of mythological invention and magical realism that Neil Gamain would be proud of, the show heads delivered one of the finest scenes in Supernatural history; Dean sitting down reluctantly to share a deep-dish pizza with Death. Pepperoni and cheese has never seemed so foreboding.

The rest of the episode, ramping its way up for next week’s finale, demonstrated the same tragic-comic flair and graphic novel giddiness.The times have never been darker, but as a cast and crew, I’m not sure I’ve seen Supernatural more alive and cheerful. This episode was crammed full of incident and event, and character dynamics that made each new scene a joy to savor. From giving Matt Frewer a nice opening scene to wrap up the Pestilence story, to a scene sure to become the comedic high point of the season; Crowley’s camera phone snapshot of he and Bobby locking lips.

“Why did you take a picture?”

“ Why did you use your tongue?”

As per the usual, Kripke and company mixed the playfulness with the darker edge the show is known for.  The kiss is humorous, but what it signifies—a dangerous deal with Bobby’s soul hanging in the balance—isn’t so much.

 Crowley, a relatively new add-on to the cast, has his work cut out for him trying to join this well-knit gang, and so far he’s a welcome addition. I’m hoping he’s less treacherous than he seems, but he is a demon after all. Still unclear how holding Bobby’s soul for collateral is actually making him safe, as I seem to remember it being defined that if you kill the demon holding the contract, you regain the soul. Sort of puts a target on your head, no?  

It also must be admired how well the production staff has managed to conjure the apocalypse while delivering only limited carnage. There’s a feel that the world’s just on the edge of getting flushed, but most of it is down to how everything is shot, composed and presented. This is an entire universe taking one, collective deep breath. Just take a look at that fabulous moment where the Big Grim shows up in Chicago for the first time, with a haunting version of the folk song, ‘O, Death’ playing on the soundtrack.

Better still is the intelligence with which the scriptwriters have written the character of Death. He isn’t one more fallen angel, or a small beans demon, with an axe to grind. He’s so old in fact, that his contempt and disdain for such a small scale squabble (the apocalypse, a small scale squabble!) is palpable in his conversations with Dean. He offers the ring freely with the condition that the eldest Winchester make sure his brother does what needs to doing to trap Lucifer in the fire. Wily old Death no doubt already has seen this entire thing go down, and he’s just pushing what needs pushed.

Ackles and Padalecki, as well as Jim Beaver and Misha Collins continue to do fantastic work, and I commend everyone for avoiding more tearful/whiny moments where characters lament and struggle with their fate. Everyone here is behaving like they are in zero hour, making decisions with limited emotional thought because that’s what is needed.  Instead of the strange flip-flopping we see on Lost, there’s a consistency to the dramatic direction of the acting.

And now, it all comes down to Sam, it seems. Will Lucifer win the day? Are we going to wrap up the apocalypse this season? Will God make his much teased appearance? And when season 6 rolls around, will it echo what Sam said last night?

“Remember when all we used to do was hunt wendigos? Do you remember that?”

Yes, Sam, I do. And although I’d love to see that again, me thinks you have all come too far for that to happen again. No matter, you are currently in the midst of Supernatural’s best season. Enjoy the ride.

“Cost me a fortune”

Poor rich Jay, his trophy wife spends his money on… him. But I do understand where he’s coming from when he says, “I don’t like activities” I believe there are two types of vacationers- doers and do not-ers. When I am on vacation I am a do not-er and when you’re on vacation with the whole family it’s hard to not do anything. Family: you don’t gotta love ‘em but ya should. Now the Prichett family vacation could be a freeloader-loaded event and they could’ve easily left Mitchell and Phil behind but they didn’t and that’s what makes this episode different from Home Alone. That and Cameron doing everything he can to keep Lily awake so that she’ll sleep on the plane.

Speaking of Cameron, we learned that he wants to dance. I’ll say it again- what won’t we learn about Cameron?

PHIL QUOTES!

“Thanks Darrell, I know I got a lotta baggage but don’t worry- I’m seeing a therapist. Just kidding, I’m fine.”

“Sometimes I wish you were my mom.”

“Uncle Phil’s here.”

“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast” is that what Phil was saying? Is that kinda like “do it right the first time” probably not, can’t imagine Phil doing much right the first time.

“The average burglar breaks in and leaves clues everywhere but not me, I’m completely clueless.”

“You weigh less than my paintball gear.”

Anybody goin’ on a Modern Family style vacation this summer?

The second of six True Blood minisodes is now available.

Each of the six original minisodes will be written by series creator Alan Ball and will run for 3-5 minutes each. They will feature lead cast members such as Sookie, Bill, Eric, Tara, Sam, Jason, Lafayette, Jessica, and Pam in original scenes set before and after the current season of True Blood.

The second minisode features Jessica, played by Deborah Ann Woll.

True Blood’s third season premieres on HBO on Sunday, June 13 at 8pm EST.

Photo © 2010 Reuters All rights reserved.

NBC confirmed today that Jimmy Fallon will be the host of the 2010 Emmys for the first time. Fallon has previously hosted MTV’s Movie Awards and Video Music Awards.

The 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards will air live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on August 29, 2010, broadcast on NBC from 8-11pm EST.

Fallon has a history of working for NBC. He is an alum of Saturday Night Live (he was on the show for six years beginning in 1998) and has been the host of Late Night since March 2009. In a statement, Fallon joked that hosting the Emmys “has been a dream of mine ever since they told me I was doing it.”

Executive producer Don Mischer told USA Today that “Jimmy has many talents. He can sing, he can dance, he does impressions, and he does it gracefully and with ease,” which could explain why Fallon was chosen as this years’ host. Mischer continued, “I think he’ll make a terrific host and we are really looking forward to working with him.”

Nominations for the awards, which are presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, will be announced the  morning of July 8, 2010.

Photo © 2010 AdMedia All rights reserved.

Bret Michaels may be back for the 2-hour live Celebrity Apprentice 3 finale set to air on May 23.

It is a great relief to fans of Michaels that his condition has stabilized. Now that his prognosis is looking up, Michaels’ camp has decided to release his location. It is confirmed that Michaels is receiving treatment at the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The Barrow Neurological Institute is one of the world’s top neurological centers, so he is in good hands.

One of his physicians, Dr. Ronald Benitez, says as long as all of the tests and studies done showed no evidence of an aneurysm, Michaels will be able to attend the live finale if he feels he has enough energy to do so.

In a statement released last Friday, Michaels’ leading physician Dr. Joseph M. Zabramski said “Bret’s sheer will to live and fully recover is undeniable.” This could be why he is projected to make it to the live finale of the Celebrity Apprentice.

All of Michaels’ scheduled musical appearances have been postponed through May 21, but his summer tour with Lynyrd Skynyrd is going ahead as scheduled. In a statement posted on his website, his camp said that they would like to start his touring schedule back up again on May 26 in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, so long as there are no further medical complications or setbacks.

A press conference has been scheduled for Tuesday, May 4th at 2pm EST, in which his doctors will further explain his condition, treatment, and prognosis.