TL;DR – This was such a surreal experience even if it might have been the most uncritical political interview I have seen in a while.  

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Review –


It has been a long time since I have been able to catch an episode of Man Vs. Wild. Back in the day it was this weird yet deeply compelling story of Bear Grylls dropping himself into the wild (or apparently wild) locations and trying to survive by consuming some of his own urine. Well if anything is going to get me back into a show it is Bear Grylls going on a trip with the Indian Prime Minister.

I was wondering how if at all the show had changed over the years and in the first five minutes of the show Bear picks up and examines some elephant dung. So the more things change the more they stay the same. Over the years, there have been some contentions as to how staged the show is if at all. Well here when you have a world leader in a place that he could get killed by a tiger so there is no chance they would be allowed to walk around by themselves and I liked that they acknowledged that the Secret Service is around.

You know to be honest it was really weird to see the head of a country on a show like this, I mean Bear just offered some elephant dung to the PM to smell and then conversed about the time he drank from some in Africa. It is a surreal combination of factors that makes this a show that really captivated me just to see what insanity would happen next.  

One thing I am honestly surprised about is that given the current situation that they still released the episode. There are currently severe tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir among many other factors. I bring this up because a lot of the episode is about introducing Modi to the wider world as he says this show is hopefully going to be a ‘big attraction’ for him and the country. This is put into focus by Bear giving a very soft-ball interview with Modi and never once posing any difficult questions.  

While there are some issues around the construction, when it comes to the actual show, they picked a really beautiful part of India to show. The Jim Corbett National Park is full of tigers, elephants, and monkeys, all put into focus by the evening storm that seemed to be always prepared to let loose. However, this more than any episode I have seen, you can see that structurally this was a lot tamer than before. This was all filmed in one day and it only really felt like they walked to the river, swum across it and then up to the waiting helicopter. It’s not a deal-breaker, and you can understand it given the guest, but it is still a bit disappointing. But then watching to people of different faiths praying for each other is one of the more compelling moments I have seen on TV.   

In the end, do we recommend Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls and PM Modi? Look there are some issues here, but there was still an almost surreal experience watching it. It is just a scenario that I never expected to see and for that it is worth the watch.    

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Man vs. Wild yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Man vs. Wild
Created by – Bear Grylls
Production/Distribution Companies – Discovery &Netflix
Starring – Bear Grylls & Narendra Modi