Heaven Knows, Mr. Ferrerman

Naked And Afraid. I tuned in thinking it would be the story of my freshman year gym class but, I was way wrong! It's actually about two people, a man  and a woman, dropped off in an exotic but dangerous locale with nothing but a camera crew. And by nothing I mean, they are buck naked! 

Last night's episode took place on a deserted island in The Maldives (I think) which is somewhere in Google and looks exotic but seems south of Hell as far as sun and heat goes.

The guy was a tall, strapping ex-Marine (Force Recon/sniper) who had been on missions all over the world. You think this would be a day at the beach for a guy with that sort of resume. But, you'd be wrong because the USMC never sent this fair-skinned fella out naked and without sunscreen. This poor man practically caught fire in the first hour. If you've ever had sunburn...his was far worse.

The young lady was a surfer girl, technically from Hawaii but, described as a sort of citizen of the world as she had never been in school and had literally lived in Google land. Her parents were rich hippies, I suspect. She was cute and effervescent and, well, I'd be remiss in my Ferrerman duties if I didn't mention that she had a spankable bottom. The curious thing was that, though she had lived all over the world in her 27 years, she was concerned about the nudity aspect of the experience, particularly hers. She said her nickname was "The Nun" because she was rather reserved and conservative. This just struck me as odd as most of the rest of the world seems to be more at ease with nudity than Americans. There is a saying: "You may be American in the kitchen but, European in the bathroom."  Consider that.

Well, nudity is the premise of every episode so, no surprises there, and I think people get used to it pretty quick when they realize that finding food and water and not getting eaten by lions over the next 21 days takes priority over boners and blushing. I think they are three episodes in and the issue of unrequited boners hasn't been discussed and that's pretty much because- I believe- that these people are seriously exhausted by the elements.

Like I said, there's a camera crew involved, I think for every minute of the twenty one days (yikes!) of this experience but, it is cable TV  and they tend to take a lot of license, artistic or not. The camera crew is not naked and afraid and probably not looking for food and water. Unions, ya know They've made us soft! But, that aside, they are there to observe and not get involved, just like you with your  camera phone when someone is getting the shit kicked out of them. Just film it and put it on Youtube.

Well, internet searches have told me that there is some off-camera coddling of these people in the form of water and nourishment- maybe even IV's to keep them alive- just like on "Survivor" and, I would hope so. We are probably one teapublican president away from televised executions and celebrities hunting the homeless for sport and I'd like to enjoy the milk of human kindness as long as I can, while we still can before it completely curdles.

Damn. I just thought of one of my favorite, old-time movies- "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison"! Robert Mitchum played a shipwrecked Marine and Deborah Kerr, a similarly displaced nun. They weren't naked (it was filmed in 1957 before nudity was discovered in Hollywood) and the scene was 1944 and WWII so, the Japanese who invaded the island provided the fear factor while Mitchum and Kerr danced around romance. Her character was an actual nun, ya know. I just wonder if the producers had that fine film in mind when they set this one up. It's a good film, check it out on Netflix!

The Marine in this one was laid up due to his sunburn and was, at first, resentful of the surfer girl who was providing 100% of their nutrition and hats made from leaves. It was like when you were first married and your bride only knew how to make one dish- COCONUTS!? AGAIN?!! Well, ya know, if you don't like coconuts (and I know I don't) fucking get up and find something else to eat!

So they weren't getting along. He bitched and she questioned his survival skills. Me too. When he got well enough to do something besides whine, he decided to dig for drinking water. That took a couple of days until he struck water. Sorta, water. It didn't look close to being potable. I've watched a few survival shows and when in doubt, please boil your water first because even clear water from mountain streams likely has millions of nasty microbes in it that will make you very sick and can kill you. The woman refused to drink it. He did.

He was lucky to escape with bad diarrhea. And she was unlucky that he didn't escape too far because he pooped about ten feet from their hut and she stepped in it. He knew better- the Marines teach pooping skills- but, when you gotta go, ya gotta go...

Editing of the promos had made it look like these two weren't gonna make it. But, he bucked up, swallowed his pride and realized that this little lady was taking care of him and was the reason they both were surviving. For x-number of days she really did carry him. Eventually he got better and helped out and they got to know each other better. He wised up and respected her and she realized that, though he was a Mr. Man, he just didn't have the skills to survive like she did. How incongruous! Temperament has a lot to do with performance in these situations and, so far, the female participants seem to be more team orientated and nurturing than the dudes.

I'm sure that will change. There are some insane bitches out there- as a trained, experienced Ferrerman, I know that. There's no cash prize for this program so, I think most of them opt to go on the "Big Brother" show. People do this because they want to test  themselves. It doesn't get much more extreme than naked, with a stranger, for 21 days. Look for it on the Discovery Channel, check your local listings.