Survival entertainment has become quite a commodity over the last few years, to the point of becoming strangely mainstream. Many in the entertainment industry today are cashing in on this mega-trend of intense interest in survivalism, realizing that there is a huge market for these kinds of shows. But has this survival entertainment trend gotten completely out of hand? Just how many survival shows are “too many”? Have we already reached that point?

Most of us have seen Les Stroud’s Survivorman on the Science Channel and Bear Grylls’ Man vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel. These two series are probably the best known of the survival series, but there are so many more. Ray Mears has been making terrific “bushcraft” series for years now for the BBC, but his shows are far better known with UK viewers. Then we have great shows like the Science Channel’s Mantracker featuring Terry Grant, Spike’s Surviving Disaster with Cade Courtley. The History Channel and A&E started producing series and specials like After Armageddon, Life after People, and Apocalypse Man.

Recently the Discovery Channel has added a few more survival shows to their line-up. Dual Survival recently started airing (at the time this article was written), and in just a few weeks they will be adding Man Woman Survival, featuring Myke Hawke and his wife Ruth England. We have also seen survival themed drama series like ABC’s Lost and Jericho, BBC’s Survivors, and even (loosely) survival-themed reality shows like... Survivor. I am sure I am forgetting some others, but you get the idea.

And let’s not forget about movies. The Book of Eli, The Road, Into the Wild, Zombieland, I Am Legend... and they are even re-making the “classic” (I use the term very loosely) 80’s post apocalyptic flick, Red Dawn! That should be interesting.

So why this increased and acute interest in survival in our society? That is a terrific question... but one I will address with a separate post.

I guess I personally would ask, “Is survival entertainment overkill even possible?” My answer would be a resounding “NO! KEEP THEM COMING!!”, but perhaps I am completely biassed. Probably so, but I am 100% OK with that. But let’s put this in a little bit of perspective:

Humor me for a moment... Think about how many “crime scene investigation” themed shows there are for us to choose from. CSI (Vegas), CSI Miami, CSI New York, Cold Case, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, NCIS, NCIS 2, the Mentalist, Bones, 48 Hours, Crime 360, and SO many more.  Or, what about home improvement shows? I will spare you a list of these. Or... how about vampire shows? Celebrity reality programs? “Intervention” type shows?

My absolute “favorite” genre (I sincerely hope you are picking up on the thick sarcasm on this one), is one that I find extremely odd and fairly exploitative (aka amusing in an ironic way)... a little genre that I personally coined “Carny Reality TV. This genre is fairly unique to TLC (The Learning Channel). It just feels like a modern version of a Carnival with no shortage of “carny folk”. Please understand, I don’t think of these people as “carnies”, but it seems pretty clear to me that TLC does.

This “genre” (I am clearly using this term loosely) started with “Little People, Big World”. Then it unravelled into other “documentaries” (more like “freak-u-mentaries”) about conjoined twins, morbidly obese people, “wolf” boy, worlds strongest boy, and MANY more. Then a series about a family eight children comes on the scene (can anyone dispute what a freak show that show turned into???), then a series called One Big Happy Family, a show featuring an entire morbidly obese family, is added to the line-up on TLC.

The show that pushed this “genre” completely over the edge for me and made my wife and I absolutely speechless... then made us laugh hysterically for several minutes... wait for it... The Little Chocolatiers. The commercial for this series featured a couple of “little people” (formerly known as “dwarfs”, formerly known as “midgets”... which will likely formerly be known as “little people”...) running their chocolate-making business and included ridiculous footage of the little couple pouring chocolate sauce all over each other. This was once the kind of stuff relegated to certain fetish websites, but is now a mainstay at TLC.

I understand that TLC is trying to “inform” us about the challenges these people face due to their “challenges”, but the fact remains that none of these shows would exist and none of these “stars” would have any kind of celebrity status were it not for the “unique physical qualities” that they possess. Thus the exploitation. Exactly like the way carnivals used to exploit their featured acts.

But I digressed... (quite some time ago, actually). We were talking about survival entertainment and whether or not we are overloaded with survival entertainment. I would argue no because I love watching them all, but some may argue otherwise. For those of us who love these kinds of shows, the steady flow of new ones works out pretty nicely for us. Keep them coming!