Season 5 of Expedition Bigfoot is only two episodes in and one wonder’s how they will keep the audience for the rest of what is an unquestionably boring season.
Reality shows, like all forms of entertainment, have a buildup, climax, and a conclusion – real or anticipated. For us as viewers, it is usually a cathartic experience that allows us to find our proverbial happy place, our eudaimonia.
In that we either accept the natural conclusion of our interest in the said entertainment activity, or eagerly anticipate its next installment, or sequel as it were.
Sometimes this interest is wasted, and in no clearer situation can this be found than the latest iteration of Expedition Bigfoot.
Wasted interest and its associated emotions of frustration and incompletion, results from a buildup to nowhere, a tower of babel, whose completion could never be attained.
Expedition Bigfoot is exactly that, a buildup to absolutely nowhere.
If you were (un)fortunate enough to have watched the first two episodes of Expedition Bigfoot’s fifth season, you know exactly what I mean.
After four seasons of putting up with the fakery, grainy footage, dodgy experts, ludicrous assumptions and conclusions, I have reached the end of my tether.
Why? Well consider this scene below, found at the beginning of the second episode:
Russel Acord, whispering: There is something up there, watching us.
Narrator: While staking out a clearing in northern California in an area known as the Lost Coast, survivalist Russel Acord, just spotted what appears to be two massive heat signatures just 100 yards away.
Russel: That’s been there all this time watching us.
Russel: Notice that they’re together. And how red hot it got. It was white all this time, now look how freakin’ red it is.
Russel: What is this?
Russel: What the hell is that?
Russel: Dude.
Russel: Bro. That’s a bear. A big bear.
Camera Operator: Oh ****
Russel: Right in front of us. It’s aware that we are here.
Footage cuts to Russel Acord in the studio, discussing bears: “Generally, a bear will run away from you if it’s alone or doesn’t feel threatened.”
Footage goes back to the bear scene out in the Lost Coast.
Camera Operator whispering: There’s more than one. Two, three.
Russel: Those are big.
Camera Operator: Those are big bears.
Russel: If this is a bear and her cubs, we have to back out of here, and it’s too close.
[Bear grunts]
Russel: Do you hear that sound?
Camera Operator: I heard it.
[Bears growling]
Russel: Holy crap. That’s moving.
[Suspenseful music]
Camera Operator: This is imminent danger.
Russel: Let’s move out of here.
Camera Operator: ****!
Russel: Light, light, light. Get moving.
Russel: Let’s go. We need to move out of here right now. Watch your step.
This was a two-minute long scene, which at its core was much ado about nothing.
What started out as an expedition to find Bigfoot, hence the show is aptly named Expedition Bigfoot, turned out to be a show about bears. Why not call it Expedition Bear Claw?
Therein lies one of the many problems with this show. How does a so-called survivalist, an “ex-military/survivalist” at that, confuse a bear heat signature with a “something” signature (suggesting Bigfoot)?
Any survivalist, especially one whose professional and sole mission is to find Bigfoot, should know the typical heat signatures in the woods, woods known to have bears.
But what we effectively got was a performative enactment of ignorance and unnecessary suspense and drama, just to fill in the time, and ensure that the episode makes it to the 40-minute or so mark.
And sadly, such filler moments and made-for-television nonsense is rife on Expedition Bigfoot.
Sometimes these fillers come out of nowhere, with fillers such as Bryce Johnson’s contemplation of Bigfoot theories, which flies in the face of all normal Bigfoot research theories.
Effectively making out Bigfoot research as a comical, and an almost conspiracy theory-driven endeavor.
Here is Johnson’s monologue in the first episode, where he does a great disservice to the Bigfoot community elevating a fringe theory of Bigfoot as an interdimensional being:
“Many people who are new to the world of Bigfoot research might not realize, but there’s a lot of disparities between the theories of just what Bigfoot is.
Now, I want to breakdown some key differences of three of those most popular theories.
The first possibility is what’s called The Flesh and Blood theory. That Bigfoot is just an undiscovered primate species.
The next theory is what’s called The Relic Hominid theory, which takes a cue from these encounters that detail human-like qualities, much like Neanderthal.
Now, the final branch of Bigfoot research explores the idea of high strangeness. This includes linking theories of Bigfoot to UFOs, possibility of shape-shifting, cloaking and even the idea that these things could be interdimensional beings.
It’s this variance in the possibilities that makes Bigfoot research so compelling, because there is so much more to learn and explore.”
This non-sequitur monologue lasted all of one minute. And beyond filling the time in the episode, achieved nothing except elevate the fringe theory of Bigfoot as interdimensional beings. Something that no serious researchers in this field entertain in their quest of finding Bigfoot.
I won’t even get started with ridiculous scene in the second episode, where Bryce Johnson once again bores and frustrates us as viewers with his unnecessary conversation with one purpled-haired expert, Biologist, Dr Carin Bondar.
Bondar not only perverted our normal understanding of animal behavior, but also succeed in wasting almost five minutes of viewers’ time, and contributed zilch to understanding the possible breeding or reproduction potentials of Bigfoot.
So, in the end, two episodes are done and dusted and we are none the wiser. The second episode once again ends with whispers, flashlights in the dark, faraway rustling, a silly theory of Bigfoot communicating by hitting branches against the trees, and some more artificial and concocted suspense.
A boring, repetitive snooze fest basically – how they will be able to milk this for the remainder of the season is something to behold – maybe that is the expedition, not finding Bigfoot.
