I had the opportunity to get a preview copy of the first episode of the upcoming show called Doomsday Preppers which will be airing next Tuesday, February 7th on National Geographic.
I wanted to take a moment to give you guys an idea about what the show is about and what my initial thoughts and reactions are.
From the introduction scenes I immediately thought that NatGeo was going to put these preppers in a negative light which I’ve seen other shows do. To my surprise though I thought they did a great job at staying neutral and just documenting what these various preppers are doing if the SHTF.
The first episode documents three different groups of preppers from vastly different walks of life:
- A group of 22 preppers from Texas with various skills (military, farming, homesteading etc) with plans of sheltering in a fortified compound capable of being completely off-grid and having 15 years of food storage for all 22 people.
- A solo surivivalist in L.A. with plans of living off the land using mostly local plants, wildlife and his wilderness survival skills.
- A young 20-something apartment-dwelling female from Houston who has enough supplies to last the initial 2 week chaos with plans to bug out to Mexico.
The basic outline of the show is as follows: Get a glimpse into the lives of each group of preppers, find out what they are preparing for, what types of preps they have, and what they are going to do when the SHTF. At the end of their segments, each prepper receives an expert assessment from Practical Preppers (a company founded by longtime preppers) who share their experiences and knowledge giving them tips on what they could improve upon. After some time, NatGeo follows up with them to see what types of changes they made after the initial assessment was made.
Without going into details about each group (I don’t want to ruin it for you) my feeling is that overall I really liked the show. Not only did I find some of the preppers inspiring (giving me some great ideas for my own plans) but I felt National Geographic did a great job at keeping the tone of the show very neutral and not condescending in any way.
I’m sure many of the everyday Americans that will watch this show will find some of these people (or maybe all) crazy and extreme, but for me I felt right at home (which maybe categorizes me into the “crazy and extreme” crowd 
).
All in all I give the show a thumbs up and would recommend you all to check it out the premier next Tuesday, Feb 7th 9PM EST.
You can get more details by checking out the Doomsday Preppers official website.
Thu, Feb 2, 2012
Food Storage