#Alone

This was the first time we watched an episode of the TV series 'Alone'-- the first episode of this season. It is the third season for that show. My wife and I are interested in it, but not yet hooked. We’ll see after we’ve watched a couple of episodes.

Sometimes you wonder how some of these contestants make it to the finals. There are 10 survivor specialists chosen from thousands of applications. Apparently, these 10 are the ultimate survivors who can survive under the most difficult conditions.

The first of them lasted two days. What a disappointment he was to the viewers, us included.

I don’t want to belittle these people. Just to make it to the final 10 is already an achievement, but come on! Quitting after 2 days of being alone in the wilderness? I consider myself to be an outdoors-man of sorts. I love hunting, fishing, camping and enjoy spending time by myself in the forest, but I’m not sure how long I would last being completely alone with just a few tools to survive. More than 2 days, of that I’m certain. The nights in such a hostile environment must be the worst, especially when you know there are wild boars and pumas around. Not exactly my ambition to be there in a makeshift shelter—without a gun or rifle, or even a bow. First thing I would make myself would be a spear.

What really made my eyebrows go up, was the fact that this macho man missed his wife and his three sons. Nothing weird about that. Now here is one thing though that wasn’t quite clear to me. When they showed him in his home environment he played with two dogs. He talked about adopting three sons. I hope he meant three human boys and not his dogs. Anyone calling a dog his son makes me wonder about his mental state of mind. A dog can be a friend or companion. I understand that. In fact, dogs make great loyal companions, more so than any human would, but they are not sons. Never sons or daughters! Unless a guy has sex with a female dog and somehow from that union a human-dog creature is born. But let’s not go there. That’s a totally different subject.

We have a bird—a canary. Sometimes I call him ‘my boy’ when I talk to him, and that is already weird enough. I make sure nobody is around when I do that, except for my wife, of course.  In the end, he is still a bird, cute and affectionate in his own way, a great singer, but only a little animal—not human.

So far on this first episode of Alone, they showed only four different people. I liked the woman. She caught fish, collected berries, and she made a chair for herself out of bamboo—for comfort. She came across as calm and competent. We’ll see what she does with building permanent shelter and preparing for colder weather, and how she makes sure she has food for those days when she doesn’t catch fish.