Dual Survival - Television Tropes & Idioms

A Discovery Channel show in the same vein as Survivorman and Man Vs Wild, with the draw of offering two experts with very different backgrounds trying to live together while showcasing their individual talents and methods for survival. Yes, it is in fact The Odd Couple meets Man Vs Wild. One, Cody Lundin, is a hardcore naturalist who has worn neither shoes, long pants or underwear in the past 22+ years and attempts to live in harmony with nature as much as humanly possible, while his partner, Dave Canterbury, is a trained army SRT, sniper and professional hunter, along with being every gruff southern stereotype that has ever existed. Seems as if it might set up a similar Dueling Shows example with Man Woman Wild as Survivorman has with Man Vs Wild, only with two competent and experienced men rather than one experienced competent man and his shrieking, nagging bag of a wife.

Dual Survival provides examples of:

Acceptable Breaks from Reality: In one episode, Cody and Dave come upon a pair of large snakes mating. Cody is against eating them because it would disrupt the natural order. Dave agrees to leave them alone because he likes snakes and because they're not hurting for food, but notes that in a real survival situation they wouldn't be allowed to indulge such kindness.
- Sometimes they'll go the other way and more openly acknowledge that they're in a contrived situation to demonstrate survival techniques than, say, Man Vs Wild does. This includes one time where Cody helps Dave heal an open wound even though Dave hadn't been injured. How do they create an open wound? Dave gashes his own arm with his knife.
Badass: Both of the guys, in different ways. Dave, of course, being a professional hunter, sniper and general roughneck, while Cody plays it more quietly badass, being a soft-spoken hippie who uses cutesy language and looks like he could rip your head off without thinking twice.
- Cody has also shown that he can be a more than competent hunter when he chooses to be.
- Any time that Cody goes without his shirt, we see that he has the physique that would be envied by any football player.
- See Acceptable Breaks From Reality example above. Even Cody's left in amazement at the bowling balls Dave has stuffed in his crotch.
- And the wound itself is healed by setting it on fire with black gunpowder.
  - And to make it arguably MORE badass is that the first time, it didn't work properly. So he did it AGAIN.
Deserted Island: One of the many settings of the show.
Ditzy Genius: Cody both embodies this and brutally subverts it. You may roll your eyes when he talks about how walking barefoot brings him closer to the earth, but he knows exactly what he's doing. Like when he blows Dave away by making a 70 degree shelter in the middle of a snowy night. As Dave puts it, "He might be a bush hippie, but he ain't no dummy.".
- Lampshaded in an advertisement for the show, which outright says "Always listen to the hippy."
Does Not Like Shoes: As noted above, Cody goes barefoot throughout the series, unless doing so would be monumentally stupid (in snowy environs, he wears thermal socks, and in one episode he fashioned a set of sandals to walk across sharp volcanic rocks without cutting his feet to ribbons).
Dueling Shows: May become this with Man Woman Wild if the latter manages to catch on.
Genius Bruiser: Cody can lecture you on how mitochondria work, can build self-heating shelters and explain the physics of how radiation works, and looks like he could rip your head off without thinking twice.
Heal It With Fire: See the Badass example above.
Ho Yay: Out the wazoo. In a particularly egregious example, during their stay in the Louisiana Bayou, Dave goes off while Cody "Plays Suzy Housewife Homemaker" and kills an alligator for supper. When he brings it back, Cody loses his temper for real for the first time in the show, because Dave could have gotten hurt, and goes off to sulk. In response, Dave cooks supper and apologetically offers it to Cody. Taking into account Dave's near-constant stream of "I worry about your feet"s and references to Cody as his "Hippie Housewife", and Cody's general soft-spokenness, despite being two ridiculously burly guys they manage to come off as having mounds of this.
- In another episode while in the Laos Jungle, Cody is showing the viewers a type of root. After listing the main properties he also adds that it is an aphrodisiac. He then says don't tell dave but I'm going to put it in his drink. (paraphrased)
  - In another episode, Cody is showing a ginger-like root that's good for sea sickness and remarks that certain Polynesian cultures believe it to be an aphrodisiac. He then adds "I shouldn't have too much, or Dave might start looking like Davette."
- This quote from a recent episode pretty much confirms that Dave and Cody have gotten past the awkward, are-people-going-to-think-we're-gay phase of the show and are full-blown exploiting their hoyay:
Cody: So... I don't get to sleep in your hammock with you?
Dave: Ohhh, Cody...
- At a lecture, Cody has also been quoted as saying that he keeps his hair in pigtails because "Dave likes to tug on them", later remarking that "Dave is very sweet to [me]."
It Tastes Like Feet: Dave's reaction to literally everything Cody tries to feed him, usually after Cody has gone to great lengths to subtly describe the meal as something unbelievably gourmet.
- Occasionally Cody himself admits that some of the more au naturale things he scrounges up do taste particularly awful.
MacGyvering: After being left an abandoned, broken-down VW in the middle of a Peruvian desert, Dave refers to it as "a supermarket" and proceeds to make an arsenal of nifty items from it, including a slingshot. This is one of the running themes of the show, with the guys being left odd items that any hiker or traveler might have if lost in the woods (usually a knife, a flashlight or, on one occasion, a condom).
- That episode had a few other examples as well, like Cody making a pair of sandals from a tire tread (even he isn't willing to walk over sharp volcanic rock barefoot), lighting a fire with a parabolic mirror from a headlight, and making a water filter with a plastic water bottle, a wad of felt, and sand and rocks.
Odd Couple: Pretty much the set-up of the show.
Real Men Eat Meat: It's not that Dave won't eat anything else — he will, he can't afford not to. However, he still generally prefers meat over anything else edible that Cody can scrounge.
Reckless Sidekick: Dave to a T. Cody's hope that Dave's unwise choice to go out and check traps at midnight in the dead middle of winter wouldn't be a repeat occurrence hasn't materialized. Since then, Dave has wrestled an alligator, hunted a rattlesnake, and stirred up a nest of wild bees to get honey. Cody has not been pleased with any of these activities, especially not the gator wrestling.
Recycled In Space: It's Man Vs Wild WITH TWO MEN!
Think Unsexy Thoughts: Used for a joke in one episode. The guys start off on a raft, and Cody is seasick. Dave asks how he's dealing with it, and one of Cody's responses is "I'm thinking about baseball. I've heard that helps."