So the folks out at Discovery, pretty much one of the last bastions of good television left on the planet, sent me a copy of Man Vs. Wild Season 4 thanks to their press agent Gaiam.  And it’s definitely something exciting to watch.

Man Vs. Wild follows survival expert Bear Grylls as he plunges through various horrible environments like the Arctic Circle, Alabama (no, seriously–Alabama’s got a lot of environments that are difficult to survive in, not to mention some really serious caves) and plenty of others in a bid to survive by any means available to him.  And he’ll both show you, and explain in almost painstaking detail, just what he’ll do.  He’ll follow that up by explaining just about everything that goes on in the environment he’s in, spending a good chunk of his time talking about something.

There have been a lot of people who take issue with Bear Grylls’ survival measures, saying that much of his work is staged, where competitors like “Survivorman” Les Stroud don’t have that luxury.  And indeed, Discovery doesn’t disagree overmuch, which led to some format changes.

But regardless, what you’re seeing with Man Vs. Wild isn’t so much a how-to of survival as it is a summation of one man’s experiences in some of the harshest terrain on earth with a few handy occasional survival tips featuring lots and lots of things that you won’t want to do unless you absolutely have to, like eating raw reindeer heart, or swimming across a frozen river completely naked.

But still, there’s some incredible things to see here, the kinds of things you don’t see just anywhere.  I don’t know how much of this is actually applicable to real life–frankly, I wouldn’t want to try and apply it–but one thing’s clear, it definitely makes for some good watching.

It’s one of Discovery’s better shows, and Bear Grylls will teach you a great whopping lot about trying to get out of some of the most terrifying places on earth alive.  So it’s left to the Screenhead Ten Scale to hand out a judgment.  Man Vs. Wild Season 4 nets an easy eight out of ten for being one of the most compelling examples of a niche product currently on the market.  When you think survival these days, a lot of us think Bear Grylls first.

This is why.