The season two premiere of Discovery Channel’s Naked And Afraid bounced onto television screens on April 19th, immediately becoming the channel’s highest-rated premiere of all time. Upon looking at the numbers, Discovery execs turned around, dropped trou, and picked up a third season of the survival series.
Naked And Afraid’s appeal is clear: two complete strangers, usually but not always a man and a woman, get totally nude and wander barefoot into a variety of inhospitable terrains. The rest of each episode is typically a mash-up of roughly hewn loincloths, quivering, ruddy flesh, and poorly-matched personalities stressed to their breaking points. Oh, and they have to “survive” for 21 days to complete some kind of challenge or something. Wait, were those balls? Those were totally balls.
This news comes after Discovery’s announcement of its fall lineup, which among other rugged adventures, contains a Naked And Afraid spinoff. Naked And Afraid XL will showcase more naked people being naked together for a Biblical 40 days and 40 nights of outdoor survival nightmares. Clearly, the people have spoken.