I quickly lost interest because the first 30 minutes of every episode is a replay of the previous episode. So if you watch several episodes in a row, say four one hour episodes you only get an hour and a half of new, unwatched material. They continually replay over and over the same video and then five minutes of commercials, then replay the same video from ten minutes ago, then commercials, then two minutes of new video. The whole thing, just playing the new video, is probably only two hours long but they stretch it into weeks with this method

I'm currently watching season 4 of this show, which had a bizarre misstep last year by relocating to Patagonia of all places.The show is an endurance survival show, with participants dropped off in a remote part of Vancouver Island (except for last season, which was in Patagonia). They must then survive until 1 is left, with loneliness usually crushing most (as per the show's appropriate title).This season they have shaken it up by having teams of two, one of which must set up camp and the other who must find them, dropped off 10 miles away.The contestants, ala Survivorman, must do all their own filming, which doubles (at least!) the effort required. How the cameras keep rolling, with no semi-trucks of batteries in sight, is an interesting question...As expected then, with a bunch of amateur filmers also trying to just survive, the camera work is Blair Witch shaky and bad, with lenses frequently fogged over and smeared.Also, there is precious little good film, as the contestants grow tired and cranky and have little energy for quality film making.This perhaps explains the bad starting to every season, where they spend way too much time showing the contestants at home.It would be nice to see each contestant go over each survival item they are bringing and why, as this is left as a mystery and detracts from the show. Instead we see endless montages of the contestants frolicking with children and dogs prior to leaving.Despite this, the show does a fairly good job of stitching the various pieces of sow's ears, into a reasonable silk purse, with encounters with bears, wolves, cougars, and spiders, all presented in horror fashion. There's also something car-crash-attractive about watching a starving person slice up a banana slug and fry it like calamari, before hungrily gobbling it down...

I binge watched both seasons. My comments focus on the more successful contestants (i.e., the final 4 or 5.FOOD = #1 issue by far I believe every contestant who tapped out was nearing starvation. #9 had lost 32# after 60 days. #8 after his kayak proved it was not effective at producing food. #10 (winner) went from the verge of collapse and tapping out to "I could last a lot longer" when he found crabs to harvest.CLOTHING & CLEANLINESS? If I wear the same fleece top every day in my house & yard, it starts to look grubby after a week or two. It would look ratty after a couple weeks of backpacking. Did the weekly medical & battery visits include a change of freshly washed identical clothes?Ditto on personal hygiene - I didn't study this, but I don't recall any scenes where it looked like people had dirty faces or grubby fingernails. I was impressed by what the contestants did, whether they got clean clothes or not. That's just a curiosity issue.I'd like to think that I might have been like Mike: create a spectacular home and then give up out of boredom after one month. I fantasize that I'd have been like Niclole: joyful attitude throughout, even as she had to quit because she was starving with no prospects of that changing. (PS - she's brilliant, but it seems she might have stockpiled food, like smoked salmon and greens.)

Finally a "non reality" show that captures your interest up to the final episode. I really don't appreciate reality shows and I blame the Dutch for inventing the "Big Brother" and giving birth to this polluting TV Show genre. But I digress..This show is phenomenal, mainly cause, as previously said by warblerluvr (a fellow IMDb user) it lacks of an annoying all-knowing host figure and there is no competition among participants for food or tool rewards which just brings out the worse in humans. I learnt a lot of survival tricks and different ways to manage yourself in adverse situations to the point that I would describe this show not only entertaining but highly educational. Now I really want to experience this kind of survival adventure for myself and learn more about the several techniques involved in the process.Of course there are also a few downs but really understandable ones:You obviously cannot like every single participant and luckily most of the annoying ones are the first and fastest to go, mostly cause they just don't have an inch of what it would take to really embark in such an adventure!Lots of repetitions i.e the same footage and lines reused before and after commercials (I watched it without so I guess for me was even worse) but again, I guess that due to the lack of other form of entertainment but the self filming participants it was just bound to happen.I would have appreciated the network acknowledgement that of course the show is filled with amazing and clearly professional shot footage of nature in all its beauties and adversities instead of pretty much just going with the "all the footage was self shot by each contender".All in all this was a great show, my favourite 2 characters from the very first episode proved to be the best and most deserving ones and had an exciting "head to head" finale! Great job History Channel, I thank you for this! I will definitely enjoy a second season of this as long as nothing changes and its kept as honest and truthful as season 1 has been!