The Island with Bear Grylls

Premise

In promoting the first series, the show was pitched as a challenge for modern men to see if they can survive when marooned on a Pacific Island armed only with minimal tools and their own initiative. According to Bear Grylls, masculinity is in crisis, and he is interested to see if men can survive stripped of the luxuries of 21st century living, and the show is therefore also a social experiment to see if man can recapture his primeval instincts.

In the second series, following complaints about the absence of women in the first series, two groups, 14 men and 14 women, were left on two separate islands. In the third series, two groups of eight men and eight women were left at opposite ends of the same island, with neither group knowing of the other's presence.

For the first series, the participants had to survive for one month. For the second series, this was extended to six weeks.

History

On 23 May 2014, it was announced that The Island has been recommissioned for a second series to air in 2015. In the second series, the men and women were featured on separate episodes on consecutive nights each week.

Location

The first series was filmed on an uninhabited Pacific island, Isla Gibraleón, which is one of the Pearl Islands off the coast of Panama. The island has an 8-kilometre (5.0-mile) coastline, 5 beaches, a mangrove swamp, and is covered with jungle. The mangrove swamp is located on the east coast of the island where the men were dropped off, and the main sandy beach is on the west coast where the men set camp.

The second series used two islands in the same archipelago, the women reusing the island from the first series, Isla Gibraleón, while the men were allocated Isla San Telmo. This series was filmed in the rainy season which presented additional challenges. Isla San Telmo was used In the third series.

Resources and training

According to Channel 4, an island that has the natural resources necessary for the men to survive a month was chosen. Additional yuca plants were planted in order to supplement the existing supply, extra animals indigenous to the islands such as caiman were also added, and a freshwater source was topped up before filming. The participants were given training about animals native to the island that are on the protected species list, and each received one day's survival training, including advice on how to catch and humanely kill caiman. The men were given machetes and knives, head torches, an initial one-day water supply, and an emergency medical kit. In addition, the participants had GPS spot trackers, and access to radio and satellite phone in case of emergency. The second series participants were given two days survival training.

Allegations of fakery

The press made claims about fakery in the show, that the water was supplied in the island by adding a rubber-lined pool and two caiman crocodiles were released on the island, and that some of the trained crew had experience of surviving in extreme environments in the wild. Grylls however rejected the claims, and said that it was necessary to make sure that there would be just enough resources to sustain the participants, and that caiman crocodiles were added to the island so that if the men were to kill them, the natural eco system would not be damaged.

Use of wildlife

The killing of the caiman sparked a number of complaints to Ofcom. A spokesman for PETA said that it showed "a deep ignorance of who animals are and a callous disregard for life", and that the ones who caught and tied up the animal "should be prosecuted". Ofcom however judged that the show did not break the rules.

In the second series, there were further criticisms after it was revealed that crocodile killed by the men was not a caiman but a protected species American crocodile. Channel 4 apologised for the error and said: "The relevant national environment agency are aware of the incident and have granted a licence to replace the animal which has now been done." The second series elicited more than 600 complaints from viewers (450 to Channel 4, 185 to Ofcom), most of the complainants accused the show of "killing animals to boost ratings".

Sexism claim

The first series was criticised as "sexist" by female survival experts for excluding women from the challenge. Lisa Fenton suggested that it was "sexism and it’s deeply rooted", and Ruth England expressed disappointment with Channel 4's decision as it "perpetuates the myth that women need to be taken care of", while Sarah Outen criticised the "male-oriented bias with adventure TV programmes". In response, Bear Grylls denied that the show was sexist, and said that the series was intended as a study of masculinity of modern man and their struggles. He then indicated an interest in doing an all-women version and that he "can't wait to do modern women's struggles."

Reviews

Grace Dent of The Independent thought the show is interesting television as it is "an attempt to form a show around utterly normal, non-fame hungry, not particularly pretty, non-celeb males", but found the first episode to be "an hour of rather plotless bumbling and twig friction." Euan Ferguson of The Observer expressed concern about the "producer selection" of mollycoddled males who might fail to cope with the wilds of the island, but thought that the participants might "make a fist of surviving, and confound a few lazy stereotypes", and that he was "semi-hooked". Christopher Stevens of the Daily Mail thought that the series showed that "survival is a tough business when you’ve only got your wits and a sharpened stick to depend on."

In the second series, Charlotte Runcie of The Daily Telegraph thought that watching people learning to "cooperate in extreme situations is always strangely compelling", although Rupert Hawksley of the same paper felt that the second series, despite the presence of women, was "every bit as sexist" as the first series. The participants' struggle with survival prompted joking references to Lord of the Flies.

Awards and nominations

The first series was nominated in the Reality & Constructed Factual category in the 2015 British Academy Television Awards and won.

Ratings

The first series had an average figure of 3.1 million viewers per episode. The average viewing figure for the second series was 2.9 million.

Participants

For the first series, one of the participants was a fully qualified doctor, three were trained cameramen and one a sound recordist, but all would live in exactly the same conditions as the rest.

Within a day of the request for participants for the second series, almost 40,000 people applied, and over 80,000 applied in total. 135,000 people applied to be in the third series of the show.

Participants on the show are as follows:

Episodes

Episode viewing figures below from BARB but do not include Channel 4 +1.

Series 1

The first series was first broadcast on Monday nights.

Series 2

For the second series, two episodes were broadcast each week - a Wednesday episode focused on the men's island, while the Thursday episode was for the women. Due to the United Kingdom general election on 7 May 2015, only the women's episode was shown that week, and the men's episode was pushed back a week. A final special episode, Surviving the Island, followed on 21 May.

Series 3

The third series was broadcast on Monday nights, a return to the scheduling of the first series.

Series 4

A fourth series begins in 2017.

The Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls

At the end of the third series a celebrity series was confirmed, and was broadcast in September and October 2016 in aid of Cancer Research UK’s Stand Up to Cancer campaign. The first series consisted of four 60 minutes episodes, the series saw 10 celebrities live on the island for 2 weeks.

Celebrities

The ten confirmed celebrities participating on the series were:

US version

The American version of the show was announced on 28 January 2015, and it premiered on 25 May 2015 on NBC.