“7 vs. wild”: Why I loved season 3 despite all the criticism

“7 vs. wild” is often criticized – especially this season. And yes, some criticism is justified: the organization behind the series leaves a lot to be desired. For true survival fans, the meaning behind the show has also been lost as more and more people are invited who normally have nothing to do with the wilderness.

But even though not everything was perfect and in the candidates’ reaction videos you learned a few things that went wrong before or during production – for example that they never got to see what the poisonous berries actually look like -, I enjoyed this season of a lot.

Here are my reasons (Please note: there will be spoilers from here on out!):

What certainly frustrated some people, for me, was pure entertainment: there were numerous plot twists this season that no one really expected. That made the season unique for me.

Just a few examples:

After the two women did not make it to the end in the second season, many did not believe in the women’s team this time either. That’s why I’m all the more pleased that Monkey and Hannah have done so well and created a great atmosphere.

Every day they came up with a new project to while away the hours. As a result, they – and the viewers – were never bored for a moment. They never complained. It almost seemed like they were both on vacation. No other team has managed to convey this feeling.

Certainly, the feeling of total loneliness in the wilderness was no longer there this season. Still, I think the team edition idea was very successful because it increases the entertainment potential even further. The best scenes came from teams reacting to each other’s funny, dumb, smart or successful actions.

Highlights such as the mutual naked inspection of Knossi and Sascha, the legendary fall of Reeze or Jan proudly telling the unsuspecting Joey about his chewing gum stone were only achieved by the two-person setups.

At first the days dragged on with no one catching a fish or anything and everyone being more or less frustrated. But as time passed, the season gained momentum.

Trymacs and Rumathra in particular provided a lot of variety with their extraordinary activities: they took the longest walks of all the participants, boiled water with hot stones out of necessity, built a great shelter and even carved a chessboard with figures.

No two teams were the same: everyone did their own thing (or stopped doing it). And even though Papaplatte and Reeze couldn’t score any points with any spectacular action, I kept my fingers crossed that they would make it despite the lack of food and extreme boredom.

An important lesson can be learned from this: if you have the will (and, admittedly, a little luck), you can endure a lot. The winning teams have proven all this.

This slightly different season ended pretty perfectly in my opinion. In the end, Papaplatte and Reeze showed real emotions again and spent the night on the beach without their shelter. The women were even sad for 14 days already were over. And it was so nice to see how everyone was happy for each other and proud of themselves when we picked them up.

All three remaining teams were more or less certain that the other teams would also hold out until the end. When they were told on the boat that that was not the case and that they were the only winners, you could only get goosebumps.