whitcombe pass, TV doco

I watched it last night. Really great. I had a hard time following them on the topo map though (I'm not familiar with the original expedition or the area). They seamed to skip large chunks of the West Coast side.

when they showed their route on a map it wasnt corresponding to where hey were, at one point the map showed them on the flat out of the mountains when they were still near the headwaters of the whitcombe. hard to tell where they were since the west coast river side is either a long gorge or dead flat.

I tend to agree that it was somewhat diffcult to follow where they were. However I think it was quite a good brief on the conditions and deprivations that Whitcombe and Lauder may have faced on the journey and the risks they had to take. It definitely highlighted the problems of crossing rivers and streams. A lot was squeezed into the time space allocated and that the point that these were men with a purpose and courage was quite clear.

great programme on the whole, but.. i think they should have put a bigger disclaimer in about the support they received, they were clean shaven the whole way. the were behaving like they were well fed they were chirpy the whole way, the north face sponsored them when they tried crossing the river on the coast i could see they had bulging collars that looked like they had residual flotation devices underneath their clothes. htey should be stating that inexperienced ill equipped people shouldnt be attemping what they were doing there were two guides listed in the credits and one , water safety specialist, there were also three production assistants listed who might have been there at the time I"d imagine at night they would be switching to warm dry gear and shelters to avoid the risk of hypothermia. its bad enough bear grylls encouraging people to take big risks with minimal gear in the outdoors. but no one sees the amount of backup support he gets.

With you on that one waynowski. It would have been a good doco if they'd stuck to the truth: we're retracing the steps of Louper & Whitcombe, and showcasing the basic equipment of the time. The fact that they went one step further to pretend that that was all they had with them - I don't believe they went 8 days without food, for example, or slep 8 days in wet clothing with no shelter. Or that 'this was the exact spot where ...' when it clearly wasn't, and how would they know anyway - stretched creduluity too far, and ruined what was a good concept. People arern't (all) stupid. Tell us the truth and we'll appreciate what you did so much more.

It was interesting. I did come away with an appreciation for what W & L achieved(or didn't),but it wasn't a documentary....and it wasn't reality TV either. Some of the camera angles of 'cliffs' etc were a bit overdone. Its a shame that such a great concept fell a bit flat. I hope the next ones are better. Beautiful country though.

i mentioned the show to a friend of mine, he mentioned it to steve gurney who did a similr coupleof programmes a while back where he took new gear the another guy did the same trip in old gear, they retraced a trip that crossed the southisland up the taramakau and down to the west coast, portaging canoes. and he did another one climbing mt cook. hte guy in the old gear had to quit because of frostbitten toes.... gurney wasn't not pleased they were ripping off his idea.

can't help thinking man vs wild is now the benchmark for outdoor reality shows. on first crossings, when they did the first river crossing you could see behind the rapid they were crossing was a flat piece of water that would have been far easier to cross, I think they were looking to film a more dramatic crossing i have my doubts about the necessity to descend the waterfalls right in the middle where the water flow was strong, again probably done for greater dramatic effect.

Haven't watched it, but from how you lot describe it it may be the next evolution of this style of documentary will involve voting people off somehow. Television does go through trends and this one will probably die, but only to be replaced by a different trend. I think getting away from the trends is something that only comes with enough funding (public or otherwise) to dispel the commercial incentives.