Celebrities will not actually be hunting bears in the upcoming Netflix reality series “Celebrity Bear Hunt.”
Instead, they will be hunting Bear Grylls, who is a human, not a bear.
Therefore, the title is misleading, and more to the point, disappointing for anyone who would reasonably expect to see celebrities hunting bears based on the show’s title.
Some might say this should surprise no one because no one in their right mind would ever consider producing and airing a show in which celebrities stalk bears in the wild and then shoot them.
In addition, few if any celebrities would ever consider such a thing for fear of criticism, except maybe Sarah Palin.
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She famously killed a caribou and took apart the animal for winter meat storage on her old TLC show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” But it is also important to note that she shot no bears on the show.
Instead of bears, the contestants on “Celebrity Bear Hunt” will try to match wits in the wild with wild man Grylls, 50, a Britisher who made his name on American TV with a slew of outdoor adventure series.
These included “Man vs. Wild” (Discovery Channel), “Worst-Case Scenario” (Discovery), “Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls” (NBC), “Bear Grylls: Escape from Hell” (Discovery), “The Island with Bear Grylls” (NBC), “Running Wild with Bear Grylls” (NBC) and many more.
“Celebrity Bear Hunt” is a British show premiering on Netflix this week. As such, most of the 12 celebrities will not exactly be household names around here.
The ones most likely to be known in the U.S. are Spice Girl Mel B., tennis great Boris Becker and possibly Kola Bokinni from “Ted Lasso” (pictured above).
On the show, the 12 will be “dropped into the [Costa Rican] jungle as prey for one of the world’s most fearsome predators -- Bear Grylls,” says Netflix.
But Bear is not exactly naked prey.* While the celebs try and track him, he is actually controlling their actions.
“Bear believes there’s an action hero inside us all -- even the celebs -- but how strong is their will to survive?” asks Netflix.
“As Bear puts them through their paces, those who fail to impress will face the dreaded 'Bear Hunt' -- a brutal game of cat and mouse where they'll be hunted down by Bear himself and, if captured, eliminated from the show,” says the Netflix description.
This survival “game” sounds ridiculous, of course, and also raises the usual questions about why participants agree to appear in these shows.
Perhaps these celebs had little else to do.
*A reference to the great 1965 movie “The Naked Prey,” starring Cornel Wilde, who also produced and directed it. It’s about a man being hunted by angry native warriors in Africa.