Doomsday Preppers, season 3
release year: 2013
genre: TV documentary (13 episodes, as #7 was missing from AppleTV's season 3 lineup)
viewing setting: home streaming 8/11-13/24
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. On another note, I couldn't help but notice that (as of this review in 2024) it's now been eleven years since some of these people insisted that some catastrophic event would happen in the next few years (it was 2013 then.) That makes it interesting to watch, as the only thing that actually DID happen was the Covid pandemic in 2020. Side note, this season featured one of the stupidest people so far, the super-religious young woman in episode 1 who refuses to defend herself and seems fine with being assaulted or even killed by marauders. Listen, kid, if your faith is so strong that you're fine with dying, you have that right, but you're guiding your group to the same fate; that's not leadership, it's failure. And you led the charge to get the one defense-minded guy kicked out of your group. If a real disaster happens, your entire camp will be nothing more than a big pile of stuff waiting for someone to come and take it from you as you watch helplessly. What Practical Preppers should have told you in their assessment: you're not a prepper, you're a victim in the making.
I also want to point out that there are differing accounts of what episodes belong to what seasons - the list on wikipedia is different from the arranged seasons/episodes on streaming platforms (one example, wikipedia has "The Gates of Hell" as a season 2 episode which aired in mid-2013 amidst the rest of the season 2 episodes, but AppleTV has that episode as part of season 3.) This makes it challenging for me to properly group these in my reviews. Ultimately, I went with AppleTV's listing and structure.
This time, I'm not going to list the motivations for the various preppers unless they're new and unheard of. Here are brief recaps of each episode's preppers (with the ones I felt were overall best prepared boldfaced) :
episode 1: three guys lead "the Colony" which is a group of preppers united to potentially live in a large, well-stocked, well-defended compound; despite some ramping-up and disagreements, their work got rated an overall 89/100 which is easily the highest score on the show thus far...a guy who's long been convinced that an asteroid will strike the Earth talked to an astronomer and became convinced that he had to dig a 2000 square foot hole in the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere and then bury his RV there as a shelter...the daughter of a couple who runs a camp hosts a group of preppers for a disaster simulation, but she doesn't believe in firearms or violence (when asked what she'd do if confronted by an armed attacker, her sincere answer is "maybe say a prayer and hope for the best") and thus butts heads with one of the people as well as all conventional preparation wisdom
episode 2: a man has a second, bugout home defended by homemade explosives and his son who he's training...another guy collects discarded junk and builds things, and has a plan to get out of town no matter what...the third prepper plans to barter for everything, may not have any money now, and refuses to use lethal force
episode 3: a sometimes-impatient father in Alabama tries to pass on his survival knowledge to his son...a couple uses various training and realistic test runs to incorporate their seven children into their preparations...two twentysomethings are new to prepping (and determined to stay off the grid and be self-sufficient, which will be needed since neither of them appear to work) but they have one's father's 100-acre farmland at their disposal
episode 4: an ex-soldier lives alone in the cold wilderness and trains dogs to help him fight...an older lady plans to run a small sanctuary to be used in the event of an avian flu outbreak...a former police officer and her husband have built a secure home atop a mountain in North Carolina, and are looking for ways to improve it
episode 5: a guy with military and diving experience in Alaska dives for extra food and buries supply caches underwater - and owns a small tank which he calls "War Machine"...an electrical contractor in Oregon built a gigantic house powered entirely by solar panels, made a lake, is building a greenhouse, has stored two years of food, and has 30 vehicles. Of note: this episode 1) goes back and forth between the two preppers, 2) features real-life twists that test their plans, and 3) lacks the usual 5-category scoring for each of them, at the end.
episode 6: one guy in Arizona wants to build an underground shelter and escape tunnel...while another guy in North Carolina uses RVs for security and wants to arm and armor one of them
episode 7, "We Are the Marauders" - this episode has been left out of the lineup on AppleTV, presumably because it featured a guy who 1) stated his intention to attack and steal from others, and 2) turned out to have legal troubles
episode 8: a business owner uses his expertise and facilities to create useful things, including a vehicle engine that runs on wood fuel and an armored bus...another guy invents things including a gigantic Fresnel lens to use sunlght for heating, cooking, and water purification
episode 9: a husband and father who fears the onset of martial law uses solar energy, has a ton of food and guns, uses an airplane for recon, and builds a variety of traps to protect his land...another guy has a rainwater system, plenty of food and ammo, and a camouflaged, tree-based bugout location that may prove challenging for his wife
episode 10: a guy's post-doomsday plan centers around his bees and building a trailer to take them, but his bee-gathering safety measures may be questionable...two brothers in Utah are responsible for prepping for their entire extended families, and build a sniper tower on their land
episode 11: a Texan has $130,000 worth of firearms in a bank vault in his house, and a command center on his roof...a business owner is prepping for his repidly-growing extended family, and building a huge underground bunker
episode 12: a chiropractor plans to use alternative medicines to help his family and others survive a disaster...a business owner with a workplace and home close to a major interstate fortifies his vehicles and land against attack
episode 13: one guy supplements his impressive food and water preps with the use of drones to survey for obstacles during a bugout...another guy builds all sorts of things including a wood-powered electricity generator and a geodesic dome shelter
episode 14: fearing a cyberattack that will render all technology non-functional, a guy and his family prepare for a life without such technology, with a focus on school and education, but also runs a small team that expels members who can't cut it, and involves a gyrocopter for air support...a Georgia firefighter fears a Russian invasion of America, and so has formed a small team to fight back when that happens; their training includes building a fake fuel tank to hide in and subjecting themselves to interrogation techniques
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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