Win the Wilderness: Netflix Marathon - Worth the Watch?

Since Win the Wilderness ended, life has carried on as normal for us. We headed up to the arctic circle in Norway last summer through to autumn via Finland and leaving through Denmark as winter began. We have prepped our van and were just about to ship it over to Canada to continue our around the world explorations when the Pandemic struck and we were stuck in the UK. So that’s the short story of what we’ve been up to since we left Alaska in June 2019.

Chances are if you’re here reading this post, you’ve seen us on Netflix’s’ new show - Win the Wilderness: Alaska. It was first aired in the UK starting in January 2020, where each episode was 60 minutes long, once a week. It lasted for six weeks and certainly had a different feel to the Netflix version which is now available worldwide. With the use of a VPN we managed to marathon the entire Netflix season in one sitting yesterday, and all I can say is WOW!

Before I go any deeper I’d like to firstly direct you to the original blog posts we wrote about the show, handily broken down into an episode-by-episode briefing.

Now let’s get into the Netflix version of Win the wilderness: Alaska.

Meet Bee & Theo

We finally got an introduction on episode 1. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you caught the original show we didn’t get a formal introduction when everyone else did - this mattered to us because it’s a competition and not knowing who the contestant was just felt a little off. So yay, an intro!

In fact, it felt like we got to know all the couples better from the get-go. I don’t know whether it’s due to the faster pace of the Netflix version, or the inclusion of clips not used originally, but that was definitely something we picked up on.

Tennis Shoes?

Look, we’re not perfect (no one is) but it’s frustrating to see misinformation being said, especially when it’s about you! The first day was incredibly rainy, so much rain that it was a record for Alaska in fact. Pretty much everyone was wearing leather waterproof boots. Theo, however, went against the grain and opted to wear a pair of (waterproof) trail runners for this, which may initially seem like a silly idea but in fact, worked out for the better as his shoes dried overnight next to the fire whereas my leather sodden ones were wet for days.

What was frustrating was CJ the ‘survival expert’ talk down on Theo’s kit, calling the trail runners ‘tennis shoes’ (you can see that they’re more than tennis shoes here) and downplaying his waterproof jacket as not waterproof at all. It was unnecessary and incorrect, so understandably it was frustrating to see. Off-camera we had many conversations with CJ, one that sticks with us was standing around a campfire and him stating he buys $10 puffer jackets from Walmart rather than the down jackets such as Theo’s Rab one, saying they’re the same and you can just replace them if you get embers on them. This flippant comment was bizarre, anybody who spends time in the outdoors will know that cheap gear is usually cheap for a reason; it doesn’t work as effectively as more expensive gear, they’re usually badly made, and they can’t protect you as well as they should. Coming from CJ who had already misjudged two of Theo’s top of the range pieces of gear this was both unsurprising and unfair as he clearly doesn’t know about effective gear.

Shorter Episodes

The episodes all had 15 minutes shaved off, as well as previous unused clips included. This made rewatching the series quite fun, and one of the reasons we actually preferred the Netflix version; it felt snappier and less dragged out, we got to see more about the couples and hear their thoughts. Some scenes which were cut included:

• Bear Stew

• Morning campfire scene episode 4

• Couples one-to-one conversations in episode 5 with Duane and Rena

• Duane and Rena’s day out

Increase in wildlife footage

Whilst we were out in Alaska we sadly didn’t actually see a Bear - except for the mammoth bear print in episode 4 - but we did get to see some Moose, a Bald Eagle, and even a Coyote. The Netflix episodes included more wildlife footage of Bears which really added to the story and certainly made it feel a lot wilder.

Final Thoughts

We’ve now watched the entire series on both the BBC and Netflix, and for us, the Netflix series is the winner. The episodes felt more engaging, and the ability to watch the entire series in one sitting makes your connection with the contestants much better.