MovieChat Forums > I Shouldn't Be Alive (2005) Discussion > 76 days at sea - alot of details left ou...

76 days at sea - alot of details left out

posted 13 years ago by MisterZed
5 replies | jump to latest

I just watched the episode and thought it was good, but then I read the article on Wikipedia and was disappointed that the episode left out so many details, many of which were quite relevant to the story. I realise that you can only fit so much into a 45 minute episode, but the show even fabricated some details, such as him spending 6 weeks in hospital.

Here are some things left out:

1) The show made no mention of his background as a naval architect, nor the fact that he designed and built the ship he set sail on. Kind of relevant, I would think! The purpose of his voyage was also very vague in the episode - in reality he was trying to compete in a race but it was cancelled.

2) There was no mention of the year the events took place. I thought it might have happened fairly recently, so I was very surprised to find out this all happened in 1982 (to be fair, they did mention he was in his 20s at the time, and in the episode he obviously looks much older). Why hide this fact from the viewers?

3) The episode didn't mention that he tried using an emergency beacon, but in those days this wasn't monitored by satellite (again, seemingly they are trying to hide that this took place in the early 80s).

4) The episode showed him finally spotting an island in the Caribbean, but it didn't mention that he saw lights on the island. In the episode, the island appeared uninhabited (again, trying to add more unnecessary and pointless suspense).

5) This is the big one - he was taken to hospital but left that afternoon!! He recovered while on the island, but NOT in hospital. The episode clearly stated that he spent 6 weeks in hospital. 6 weeks sounds ridiculous for what basically amounted to just dehydration/exhaustion.

[–] nolatecharges 13 years ago

ya should read the book if yer really intersted ya can get it on ebay or amazon its really good.

[–] knifeparty2004 13 years ago

The episode I saw mentioned that he left the hospital the same day he got there and slowly rehabilitated himself on the island. Didn't hear anything about 6 weeks in hospital.

I agree, alot of details were left out but I guess alot of details are generally unnecessary. The show is about survival, not really about the life of the person surviving. Alot of dates in the show are not mentioned, I guess it is more appealing to the viewer if they think the event happened more recently. Although when you see how old the Survivors are in their interviews, it becomes apparent that alot of these incidents happened over 20 years ago.

[–] LukeCoolHand 12 years ago

"The show made no mention of his background as a naval architect, nor the fact that he designed and built the ship he set sail on. Kind of relevant, I would think!"

Actually they did state that the boat was "self built". And the stuff that was left out was not thast big of a deal. They can't describe 76 days in 45 minutes.

[–] dexteric01 12 years ago

Being that this post was a year ago I think it is out of date and maybe the episode had been edited with additional info.

The episode I saw mentioned the beacon but the unlikely-hood of it being found during that time period. The boat was said in the beginning to have been self built clearly.

[–] wanton87 (934) 5 years ago

Excellent series. I’ve only seen about 5 of the episodes, but I’m going to go through the rest on animal planet, when I get the chance.

I saw this episode previously, and watched it again more recently. I didn’t recall any mention of the 6 week hospital recuperation. But according to the narrator at the end, he weighed 100lbs when he was rescued, so he must have had a lengthy recovery time. I figured that it took place some time in the 80’s, or early 90’s. Yeah, you’d definitely want one of those emergency beacons. You’d also want a cell phone and a marine band hand held to be kept with the life raft. Also a good idea to know how your emergency solar stills work prior to heading out, so that you don’t have to destroy one in order to figure that out when you need it the most.

Reading through the threads, I see that the producers at animal planet took a lot of liberties with the real life versions of these incidents. That’s to be expected with many reality shows I suppose, but I wouldn’t have expected it with this particular style of show.

This episode re-affirmed my status as a land lover :D

https://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/i-shouldnt-be-alive/full-episodes/76-days-adrift