Doomsday Preppers, season 2
release year: 2012-13
genre: TV documentary (17 episodes)
viewing setting: home streaming 8/9-11/24
synopsis: Various preppers and survivalists show and tell their plans and preparations, which are then evaluated by a consulting company.
impressions: This show was a good source of ideas as well as potential drawbacks to watch out for. By this, I simply mean that some of these people are either over the edge or have gone off in a strange direction. Similarly, some of these people seem either oblivious or uncaring that their spouse and/or children don't share their passion for preparedness, or even outright hate it (which raises the question, is it worth knowing your offspring are safe if you rob them of a chance for a normal life and possibly cause them to resent you in the long term? this seems like selfish parenting to me.) A time or two, they are attempting to involve and teach their children and it's painfully obvious that the kids lack the interest, the ability, or both (it's never a good idea to put a loaded firearm in the hands of a young, unmotivated, and possibly of-less-than-average-intelligence child.) And there are also a few cases where it would have been a lot easier to just relocate away from the perceived risk, rather than continue to fight uphill battles. I mean, seriously...if you live on the coast and your big driving motivation is fear of a tsunami, then MOVE. If you live in the shadow of a volcano that erupted a few decades ago and you're afraid it will do so again, then MOVE. And so on. Surely that would be easier than spending tons of time, money, and effort mitigating a risk that you could instead just escape?
Anyhow, the list of fears from this season's preppers (noted here one by one as I watched the episodes, including duplications) are: nuclear attack, economic collapse, biological attack, nuclear plant meltdown, tornados, rising sea levels, economic collapse, world war, earthquake, dirty bomb, general "unexpected" problems, the potential eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, economic collapse and food shortages, earthquake, terrorist attacks, worldwide economic collapse, a hurricane, a nuclear plant accident, terrorism, economic collapse, mega-tsunami, EMP, EMP and solar flare, Biblical earthquake, pole shift, economic collapse, worldwide agricultural collapse, terrorist attack on the power grid, a comet hitting the planet, total economic collapse, terrorist attack, economic collapse, economic collapse, catastrophic economic collapse, government takeover due to economic unsustainability, tsunami, volcanic eruption, geomagnetic storm, EMP caused by nuclear attack, terrorist occupation, solar flares causing breakdown of electrical grid, economic collapse, another ecomomic collapse. So in 17 episodes with a total of 43 motivating factors for individuals, 14 of them were either economic collapse or closely related; so that's the most common fear, economic collapse. Now, here are brief recaps of each episode's preppers (with the ones I felt were overall best prepared boldfaced) :
episode 1: "Big Al", who's produced his own song about prepping and also had a remote underground bugout home...a teenager who has the basic idea down but lacks the experience and funds to do more...a large family who does a simulated bugout in full hazmat suits.
episode 2: a family whose core prepping mantra is redundancy...a homesteading/farming family with insulin dependencies, but who is building a bunker...a retired couple who moved from Florida to the middle of nowhere in Texas, is building a house out of garbage, has 21 dogs, lacks their own water source, uses their waste to fertilize their garden, and is learning how to find and kill rattlesnakes
episode 3: a former police officer who protects his fmaily by stocking food, water, and weapons and also organizes and runs drills with his neighbors...a guy in his 20 whose prepping plan doesn't just include his RV and remote land but also his new foreign wife - who doesn't know about the plans to leave the city and move out there (this segment didn't seem to be about prepping as much as mail order bride drama)...a couple who own a small business and have sunk so much money into prepping that they have no savings to cover new needs
episode 4: two guys (a retired doctor with a lot of money and a really solid bugout location as well as a lot of firearms experience and a radiation technician with somewhat more enthusiasm than firearm smarts) team their families up to share the former's hideaway in a time of crisis
episode 5: a rich guy who lives in his fortified, high-tech cliffside house by himself and is constantly learning new tactical skills...a guy who worries about one highly improbable event and buys storage unit contents at auction and is learning to fly a small plane...two neighbors both use aquaponics systems to make food (and one of them refuses to do anything to protect it)
episode 6: another rich guy who lives with his family along a fault line, but rather than move to eliminate the risk he instead spends tons of money to strengthen his home and preps...a Jewish political candidate takes on the challenges of merging his faith and prepping...a guy who's supplementing his family's food stores with algae, worms, and mice
episode 7: special New York City episode, in which: a young woman trains herself to haul a big backpack and walk out of the city if needed...a medical student plans to walk a while and then take a boat out of the city...a businessman sets the goal of reaching his family and then escaping the city before it's locked down
episode 8: a guy who grew up poor and hunting for food but now apparently has enough money to buy a ton of land and a bullet-making assembly line and an underground shelter...a highly-organized, intense, bossy, possibly-insane wife and mom who focuses on portability of preps, but is an organizer rather than a laborer
episode 9: a guy spends all of his money starting a castle, and then gathers his ten kids together to figure out which of them will be in charge of finishing it...a family wild-west show town doubles as their prepping sanctuary
episode 10: a young, religious farmer and his family work to assemble a team of like-minded preppers including the guy from season 1, episode 4...the coolest prepper name ever (SNAKE BLOCKER) which belongs to a Native American whose survival plan for him and his wife involves roaming the wilderness, catching rabbits, and eating bugs
episode 11: a couple who make and store their own food, keep up with their firearms and tactical training, and recruit (and test) potential new members of their survival group...a man who's custom-built a gigantic survival truck he calls "the Behemoth"...a rich but odd couple who bought a 50-room mansion in the mountains of North Carolina on the advice of a ghostly voice they supposedly heard, and then found it to be already prepared and stocked (this was a weird and silly segment)
episode 12: a retired firefighter/paramedic couple who live a life free of both income and debt, on a remote mountain farm...a podcaster who lives in his RV and never stays in one place for long...an older couple who own a small plane and a remote underground bunker, and are staying physically fit
episode 13: a rock quarry owner who's in the process of burying a shipping container...a guy who is restoring a 40,000 square foot missile silo and also trying to meet the right woman, but doesn't realize that leading the conversation with the silo on the first date, and taking them there on the second, might not be the best approach; in fact, he treats the dates more like military job interviews than sincere attempts to find an ideal life companion - and when your trump card for the big silo tour is a 17-story shaft filled with fifty years of leaked water which can only be reached by rapelling down, you're likely not gonna win the card game
episode 14: an Alaskan native is laser-focused on fortifying his remote bugout location in the wilderness, and tries to get his teenaged daughter on board; he also leaves live explosives out in the winderness, fells trees to block the river when he wants to, and is generally an asshole...a guy in Hawaii plans to flee a tsunami by kayak, taking nothing in the way of food, water, or supplies (perhaps led by the same intuition that he says will warn him of the danger in advance)
episode 15: grandparents who have a massive and well-stocked caravan bugout plan for their extended family (a plan which mostly goes to crap during the test bugout simply because they're trying to bring too much stuff)...a boat captain who's armored and stocked his large boat and takes a small group of family and friends on a two-day test run
episode 16: a lady descended from hardy Virginia stock, who lives in a wilderness cabin and aims for total self-sufficiency, and builds weapons and other useful things...a guy who (along with most of his family) thinks terrorists are going to take over the country, and plans to use the sewers to move around...a guy who's moved his family to the middle of nowhere, where they live without any modern utilities, use a giant puddle for a pool, and apparently have no intention or ability to defend themselves
episode 17: a guy who's bought so many supplies that his house is full, yet he's still ordering more, and has also decided that it's time for his 6-year-old to start going to the firing range, and plans to buy a big underground bunke - a process which introduces the viewer to a company that builds such bunkers (and requires all employees to be preppers who possess useful skills)...a family who decides to relocate to Costa Rica, and trains their children in some basic wilderness survival (despite some of them being so young that they still talk in baby talk) and bringing in an expert to teach them all how to cook and eat insects, and kill and prepare a turkey
acting: n/a but there are some real characters here
final word: Interesting advice on preparation, some of it a bit out there, much of it valid. Worth seeing just to learn it all and then sort out what's useful.
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