“I’m a prepper because I’m prepping for when s— hits the fan.” – Paul
Doomsday Preppers is about survivalists, for lack of a better term, who do all kinds of crazy stuff in preparation for the end of the world.
In the series premiere, “Bullets, Lots of Bullets,” we first meet Paul, a Vietnam veteran, and his wife Gloria who have built a compound comprised of a half-dozen steel shipping containers on the outskirts of San Antonio. Paul believes that we are on the cusp of Armageddon, which will be brought about by a complete magnetic shift of Earth’s north and south poles, and the only thing that will save him is over 50,000 pounds of preserved corn and chimichanga filling.
I must note that the thing that annoyed me so much about Doomsday Preppers is the fact that the show aims to legitimize these preppers’… very outside the norm beliefs. As Paul is talking about magnetic polar shifts, the show flashes graphics and statistics that indicate that his fears are valid, and a complete shift within our lifetimes is possible. It’s insane.
The things that these people do – out of fear or boredom or mental instability or whatever their reason might be – are insane. And yet, the show never calls them out on it. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Doomsday Preppers feeds into the craziness by sending out an “expert” to Paul’s compound to give him advice on how to further prepare for the end of the world.
Here’s what I equate Doomsday Preppers to: imagine a show about neo-Nazis in America. First the show introduces the audience to a racist skinhead who spouts off about how the Jews are doing this and the blacks are doing that. Then a graph pops up showing that African Americans are convicted of a “disproportionate” amount of crime. A second graph pops up showing that Jews control a disproportionate number of global financial institutions. Lastly, an “expert” shows up and teaches the skinhead how to goosestep properly. Never does the show say, “Hey look at this guy, isn’t he nuts?” Instead it validates his wacky beliefs and, worse yet, encourages them.
Sadly, we’re seeing quite a lot of this kind of thing across conservative media these days as well.
No doubt, survivalists are interesting. I would gladly watch a show about them, but only if the show was honest about what it was doing. Doomsday Preppers seems to think that its subjects are regular Joes who just happen to “doomsday prep”, when in fact there is nothing normal about that kind of behavior.
Some stats and info about Doomsday Preppers, “Bullets, Lots of Bullets”
TV SHOW – Doomsday Preppers
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 1
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – National Geographic
CAST – Michael Izquierdo, Stephen Mangan, Tim Ralston
GENRE – Reality TV, Docuseries, Trashtastic TV
This review was originally published on TV Geek Army.