Out of the Wild (Discovery Channel)

There are many advantages to modern civilization, and thousands of years of industrial development and technological innovation have led to some truly amazing inventions. But in the process, humans have lost some of the basic skills that helped us survive -- and thrive. This fascinating reality show makes it clear that satisfying the basic human needs of food and shelter is an enormously complicated task. All of the participants received three days of survival training before the show began, and they start out with some important tools. But training and equipment only go so far in this harsh wilderness; hunting and fishing take on a whole new level of importance when they're your only source of nutrition, rather than recreational activities. Watching the group hungrily share a single wild mouse after days without food, just one tiny nibble each, drives home the point that a world filled with grocery stores and restaurants has made mankind soft.

The participants aren't trying to win a game. There's no cash prize at the end, and nobody gets voted off -- they're simply trying to prove that they can live off the land (but everyone has an electronic beacon that can summon a rescue helicopter if they decide they can't hack it). Watching their struggle provides plenty of very real human drama; on some levels, it's more fundamentally compelling than politics, romance, or war. Still, there is voyeuristic irony in a TV show that turns suffering into a form of entertainment. And it must be said that part of the entertainment value for armchair survivalists is watching these newbies make mistakes. The narrator sternly explains where the group goes wrong, as well as the potential impact of these blunders: "The rules are simple -- survive, or die."