However, it would have been much better if there was more emphasis on Bear using his GoPro for you to make decisions, making you feel like you're really impacting his journey. Yes, all of the locations Bear heads to look very impressive, and are wonderful, that's for sure. The series constantly falls into the trap of being too well-shot. Wild' this is the only similarity between the two interactive features. Although, you can just leave him trapped, making you go back to your previous selection - a la 'Bandersnatch'. Each episode has a running time of around 20 minutes, but could easily have been halved if all of the extra details were kept to a minimum.Īnd no, before you ask - you can't kill Bear Grylls in this either. It's all very long-winded and drawn-out, leaving you bored. Finally, when your decision has been made, Bear will talk about your choice and give you his opinion. Then, while you contemplate your choice for 10 seconds, Bear will voice-over the choices for you again. When you are faced with a choice of either coasteering off the side of a cliff, or climbing its face, Bear will explain each choice to you in detail before you choose. It makes no sense.Īnd similar to when you're watching American TV and it cuts to an ad break every 5 minutes, 'You Vs. Bear tells us 'good job' before then ploughing back into the river, where we saw two seconds beforehand the crocodile has gone into. Bear takes out his trusty slingshot, fires a stone at it, and the croc dashes away back into the river. This croc needs to be hunted away to make our path down the river clear again.

Later on, as you make your way down a knee-deep river, you come across quite a small crocodile in a small clearing of land. Take episode one for example - you are given the choice of choosing either a slingshot or grip hooks for climbing to take with you - with Bear apparently only having enough space for one of the choices we chose the slingshot. All of the action shots from various different locations make it painfully obvious to the viewer than Bear is never in danger, no matter how much he pretends to be (it doesn't help matters that he's still walking around in real life too).

It was a great idea from Netflix, and could have had enormous potential, but it just doesn't work. Yes it's aimed at children, but it all looks and feels completely fabricated. Wild', there's no real sense of danger anywhere in the series. Should Bear build a fire or freeze to death? You decide.

Man vs wild netflix