Celebrity Bear Hunt is a confusing name. It implies the hunting of famous bears such as Winnie the Pooh, Yogi Bear, Paddington and Big Ted from Play School, presumably for their luxurious pelts and delicious flesh, marmalade sandwiches and picnic baskets.
In fact Celebrity Bear Hunt involves the very human Bear Grylls hunting very human celebrities through the Costa Rican wilderness where, it is implied, he lives and works. In fairness, though, some of the people he hunts are on the B or C list of fame, so the name Bearly Celebrities could also work.
I’m so sorry. Bear Grylls will no doubt hunt me down for that joke. The man is, as is clear from this Netflix show, an absolute menace. He travels in a helicopter that he has fashioned from mud and bark, I assume, and that he parachutes or abseils from.
He never has the helicopter land on the ground so he can disembark, because that’s what weaklings do. Then he stalks through the bush, self-narrating to camera like the other great apex predators (sharks never shut up, I hear) while pursuing people such as terrified 64-year-old Shirley Ballas, from Strictly Come Dancing. It’s a very particular lifestyle choice.
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We were always headed here. From the moment reality television was invented, it was clear that eventually a network would film an apparently unhinged survivalist hunting the most helpless prey of all: celebs.
“I’ve done some very wild things in my life, but I’ve never hunted celebrities,” the ursine barbecuist explains with a hint of melancholy. It’s obvious that this has long been a source of great sadness to him. Then he adds, with joy: “That is about to change.”
On this programme Bear Grylls spends much of his time hiding in the undergrowth with muck on his face, setting literal mantraps and probably drinking his own wee (he’s done it before: the man loves wee!), so the more mundane presenting tasks are left largely to Holly Willoughby.
She is well used to being partnered with troublesome co-hosts. Bear Grylls may like to eat insects and have urine on his breath, but he’s not Phillip Schofield.
In the first episode the various celebrities are split into two groups and told to find their way to base camp, a ramshackle living area that looks like Castle Grayskull mixed with Colonel Kurtz’s compound in Apocalypse Now. (Grylls is in the Kurtz role and Willoughby is basically Dennis Hopper.) Then Bear Grylls parachutes down from his helicopter to track his celebrity prey.
Things kick off excitingly enough. Mel B is left in a sinking boat in a crocodile-infested river by her hapless team-mates, who just row away. Will Netflix allow Mel B to be eaten by a crocodile? Look, killing a Spice Girl is new for television, but Netflix doesn’t have the BBC’s public-service remit, and it’s based, I believe, on an oil rig in international waters, beyond the scope of the law.
At least it’s an innovation. I’ll get a few think-pieces out of it and Mel C will get a promotion. Then, unexpectedly, Mel B is saved by Bear Grylls, who should be hunting her. Having seen a lot of romantic comedies, I assume he is making an exception for her because he has fallen in love. From now on I will also call him Spice Grylls.
Spice Grylls pursues the other celebrities mercilessly. He does this by running at them while grunting. He runs at flamboyant interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, at TV presenter Steph McGovern and at model Leomie Anderson. That’s quite a well-balanced celebrity menu if he’s planning to eat them.
But wait: what is he planning to do with them? It’s at this point that I lose faith in the format, because Bear Grylls doesn’t gnaw on their extremities or pummel them with his bare hands (or “Bear hands”, if you prefer). He just sort of “catches” them while the word “Caught” comes up on-screen.
And that’s when I realise that this isn’t a “hunt”. This is “chasing”. Bear Grylls and a bunch of celebrities are playing chasing. “Bear Grylls plays celebrity chasing” isn’t quite as strong a sell as “Bear Grylls hunts celebrities for their succulent flesh”. Though that, in fairness, was not specifically promised in the trailer. Again, I just made an assumption.
At this point Bear Grylls gives everyone a lecture about the need to be alert like deer when they’re playing chasing, to which rapper Big Zuu says, reasonably, “I don’t know what he means by ‘be a deer’. I’m not a deer. I’m not a deery man.”
Then all four of the previously “caught” celebrities are given another challenge. They must escape from an area of the wilderness before Bear Grylls can catch them. He calls this area “the Bear Pit” and says, “Once you enter the Bear Pit all gloves come off.”
This doesn’t make sense as a metaphor unless bears wear gloves – and bears do not wear gloves. At best bears wear a hat, a collar, a tie and nothing else. (I’m thinking of Yogi Bear again.)
In fairness, Bear Grylls isn’t marketed as a wordsmith who knows not to deploy confusing metaphors. No, he is marketed as a twig-strewn lunatic who likes to lurk in trees and chase people.
This behaviour isn’t usually a recipe for career success, but there’s been a vibe shift in the culture of late. And now the celebrities must be as quiet as deery men lest Bear Grylls hear them snapping twigs, focus his unsettling gaze in their direction and start running towards them. But silence is difficult when everybody is accompanied by their own camera crew.
The game of chasing commences in earnest, and Bear Grylls catches all of the celebrities by snaring them in traps or running them to ground. He catches Llewelyn-Bowen because he’s an older man and he needs to stop to have a wee.
Bear Grylls, as we have established, loves wee and he also loves besting the aged. Mel B escapes by crossing a lake on a raft before climbing a cliff to safety. I have heard that this is also how she escaped from the Spice Girls.
There’s another challenge at this point in which two teams compete to cross a ravine over a rickety bridge while wearing safety harnesses that surely must make Bear Grylls feel sick to his stomach with disgust. What wimps.
These bits are less interesting than Bear Grylls thundering across the valley after frightened celebrities, to be honest, even if all he ultimately does when he catches them is hold them in a gentle embrace.
Real stakes would be nice, but that might be too much to ask for right now. I mean, we all assume Bear Grylls also hunts humans for real, but we’ll be in the fourth or fifth Trump term before the world is ready for that on camera.
