Naked and Afraid is a surprisingly interesting survivalist show, where a man and woman try to survive in the wild for 21 days. And yes, they are naked... and blurry.

While I like the show, it has some flaws. Naked and Afraid often turns out to be Naked and Starving, since 21 days with little or no food is doable. Another problem is that participants are allowed only one survival item each, but really there are three necessary items: a knife, a firestarter, and a pot. So, most pairs go with the knife and firestarter and just hope to find a pot substitute. It adds some spice when someone varies from this, but mother nature punished duct tape boy and magnifying glass girl for their innovations.

There is survival information to be learned, but not a lot. You learn that drinking from questionable water sources is punishable by death (or close to it.) You learn that starting fires is a lot harder than it looks, especially in a wet environment. You see these things over and over, when it would be more enjoyable to keep learning new things. Perhaps the most important lesson is that there is just no way in hell you are going to survive in the wild with minimal tools, considering that some of these people have trained their whole lives for this and nearly all of them starved.

The spin-off show, Naked and Afraid XL, fixes a lot of the flaws.