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Mantracker
Feb. 4th, 2011 11:59 pmI tried to motivate myself to do a big seasonal house-cleaning push over the weekend, but instead I did the exact opposite.
Instead, I cleaned off my DVR by watching stuff on it, namely like six episodes of Mantracker.
Mantracker is another one of those shows that is actually pretty good - if not great - but suffers from a completely clown shoes marketing campaign. The marketing campaign is all cheesy music, cheesy camera shots and cheesy machismo-glaring, but the actual format and production of the show is a great deal more serious.
The challenge is interesting. A team of two people playing "the prey" is armed with a compass, map, the gear they pack from home. They're given a specific finish point, usually 20 plus miles away, through what is usually very rugged Canadian wilderness. They usually have a 36-hour deadline to reach the finish point.
A flare goes off at their starting point, and they take off.
A mile away, Terry Grant, a Canadian tracking and search-and-rescue expert, sees the flare, and starts out to catch the team before they reach the finish point. He has no idea what the prey looks like or where their start and finish points are. He has to use evidence of their passing to discover their direction of travel, track them down, and catch them before they reach their destination.
What follows is an entertaining cat-and-mouse game. Terry Grant (always cheesily referred to as "Mantracker") and his local guide/sidekick are mounted on horses, but this isn't always the advantage one would think. Horses can't move through dense bush, and oftentimes prey can easily escape Mantracker by bush-whacking twenty yards off a trail. But of course, facing a deadline, prey don't have the time (or endurance) to bush-whack their entire route. Both sides have to employ strategy.
The horsemanship of the chase team is extraordinary, but that's one of those things that doesn't seem impressive unless you're familiar with equestrian trail riding. Then it's mind-boggling. The Mantracker team confidently speed over terrain that the hobbyist rider would be nervous to walk over; Mantracker's horses scrambling up and down incredibly steep slopes and plunging into loose rock, swamp, forest, and open rivers. We were barely able to get our family horses to step into shallow rain puddles on a trail...and sometimes not even then.
Also, it's a wonderful novelty to have a show just be about the challenge and nothing else. The only prize to be won is bragging rights.
The terrain and the prey change often enough that even after an eight hour marathon of episodes, the format was still entertaining and fresh. Too bad it's been weighed down with such a silly advertising campaign.
Instead, I cleaned off my DVR by watching stuff on it, namely like six episodes of Mantracker.
Mantracker is another one of those shows that is actually pretty good - if not great - but suffers from a completely clown shoes marketing campaign. The marketing campaign is all cheesy music, cheesy camera shots and cheesy machismo-glaring, but the actual format and production of the show is a great deal more serious.
The challenge is interesting. A team of two people playing "the prey" is armed with a compass, map, the gear they pack from home. They're given a specific finish point, usually 20 plus miles away, through what is usually very rugged Canadian wilderness. They usually have a 36-hour deadline to reach the finish point.
A flare goes off at their starting point, and they take off.
A mile away, Terry Grant, a Canadian tracking and search-and-rescue expert, sees the flare, and starts out to catch the team before they reach the finish point. He has no idea what the prey looks like or where their start and finish points are. He has to use evidence of their passing to discover their direction of travel, track them down, and catch them before they reach their destination.
What follows is an entertaining cat-and-mouse game. Terry Grant (always cheesily referred to as "Mantracker") and his local guide/sidekick are mounted on horses, but this isn't always the advantage one would think. Horses can't move through dense bush, and oftentimes prey can easily escape Mantracker by bush-whacking twenty yards off a trail. But of course, facing a deadline, prey don't have the time (or endurance) to bush-whack their entire route. Both sides have to employ strategy.
The horsemanship of the chase team is extraordinary, but that's one of those things that doesn't seem impressive unless you're familiar with equestrian trail riding. Then it's mind-boggling. The Mantracker team confidently speed over terrain that the hobbyist rider would be nervous to walk over; Mantracker's horses scrambling up and down incredibly steep slopes and plunging into loose rock, swamp, forest, and open rivers. We were barely able to get our family horses to step into shallow rain puddles on a trail...and sometimes not even then.
Also, it's a wonderful novelty to have a show just be about the challenge and nothing else. The only prize to be won is bragging rights.
The terrain and the prey change often enough that even after an eight hour marathon of episodes, the format was still entertaining and fresh. Too bad it's been weighed down with such a silly advertising campaign.
