What An Idiot / Naked and Afraid

• The premise of the show: Two people are going to be sent alone with no clothes and very little equipment to extremely dangerous climates and locales and must survive on their own for as long as they can (upper cap being 21 days) in order to win.
  You'd Expect: That the two people selected are carefully vetted to make sure they are compatible working together as well as actually know what they are doing to a minimum baseline, to ensure that no excessive amount of human-caused errors occur that could endanger their lives.
  Instead: This doesn't happen, or if it does happen, it is inadequate.
  As A Result: Many episodes go down in flames when one (or in rare cases, both) party member(s) outright refuses to work with the other, endangering their teammate, or is so incompetent that they have to be evacuated early, leaving the other member risking extremely dangerous temperatures and situations completely alone.

• Episode 101: The Jungle Curse: Survival instructor Kim is paired with extreme athlete Shane, pitted against extreme weather and dangerous animals in the Costa Rica rainforest.
  You'd Expect: Shane, who has no formal survival training, to be glad to have an experienced partner.
  Instead: Shane spends the entire three week period trash-talking people in their twenties and women in general and Kim in specific, mocking her skills even after she is forced to take care of him after he breaks his foot while being ill herself.

• Episode 104: Punishment in Panama: Survival instructors Laura Zerra and Clint Jivoin try to survive in a Panamanian desert island with nothing but a machete and swimming goggles.
  You'd Expect: Anyone who brings swimming goggles as their survival tool to not be afraid of swimming in the ocean.
  Instead: Clint refuses to use his goggles to search for food underwater because he is afraid of sharks (that he never encountered), effectively reducing their survival tools to Laura's machete until she decides to use the goggles herself.
  It Gets Worse: when Clint panics and swims back to the shore, taking their shared makeshift raft with him while Laura is still underwater. Though Clint's PSR went up due to completing the challenge and some other stuff that was left on the cutting floor, he got nothing but scorn from the audience and was put to further shame in the season finale, when the similarly looking Forrest Gallante was dropped on the same location and with the same tool, yet managed to thrive despite dealing with worse weather and a completely uncooperative partner.

• Episode 107: Double Jeopardy: Two couples are dropped on the Panamanian coast, not told of the other team also being a part of the challenge. Eventually they meet up and decide to pool their efforts for survival.
  You'd Expect: The group to do quite well given that they have a larger base of tools and people with a wider variety of experiences and training to draw upon.
  Instead: One of the female survivalists, Cassie, turns into The Load. She spends most of her time working on her tan, and refuses to look for food and water because "there is plenty of time" and she is used to fasting. She also refuses food when it is offered to her, letting half an anteater that Forrest killed go to waste. When Forrest tells her days later that he found some oysters and ate them all because she wants no food from him, you can tell from her face that she is hungry now and realizes she screwed up, but is too proud to admit it.
  It Gets Worse: Cassie, not having learned her lesson, acts equally hostile to Manu and Russell after their groups join up, and she only has a sudden epiphany and apologizes for her behavior the day before departing, when the others were contemplating leaving her behind.
  As a Result: Though she successfully completed the challenge, her PSR dropped to 3.4 - the lowest score recorded for any survivalist to date.

• Episode 202: Damned In Africa: Amateur hunter Jeff and wilderness guide Eva face the wilds of Madagascar with nothing but a knife and a fire-starter.
  You'd Expect: Jeff to defer to Eva's greater experience, given that she lives off the land for a living and has experience in dry climates he doesn't.
  Instead: Jeff, citing his Mormon faith, refuses to share body heat with his partner Eva, despite near-freezing temperatures and a lack of fire. He later burned the first bit of food they had in two weeks - a snake that Eva caught with her bare hands. To add insult to injury, he complained about not liking feminists and credited The Holy Father with their success in finding food rather than Eva's experience as a wilderness guide. To top it all off, he burned their camp down with his second attempt to cook a snake.

• Episode 203: Paradise Lost: In this episode, make-up artist Alana and sobriety coach Keith must survive on a deserted beach in Fiji with nothing but a machete and a fire-starter.
  You'd Expect: their first priority would be finding water.
  Instead: Keith wastes time and energy trying to cut down trees with his machete and provokes poisonous sea snakes while playing the big-strong-man trying to "protect" Alana.
  As A Result: He winds up tapping out on Day 11, after getting some kind of intestinal disease drinking unclean water.
  It Gets Worse: if you watch some of the bonus footage on the show's website. There it's revealed that not only did Keith allow their fire to go out, but he wasted a day trying to build chairs for their shelter at a time when they had no fire, no food and no water.

• Episode 205: The Pain Forest: Firefighter Fernando and single-mom Samantha brave the rain forests of Malaysia with nothing but a machete and a fire-starter.
  You'd Expect: That anyone with a modicum of survival training to know that eating strange mushrooms is a bad idea.
  Instead: Fernando chows down on an unknown mushroom.
  As a Result: He has an allergic reaction almost immediately. His blood pressure drops to a lethal level and he develops a 103.8 degree fever. This was such a brazen act of stupidity that Fernando's final PSR score dropped, despite his successfully completing the challenge.

• Episode 206: Meltdown In Bolivia: Survival instructor Vincent and homemaker Sabrina tackle the tropical jungle of Bolivia with two fire-starting sticks and a hatchet.
  You'd Expect: them to do quite well, given that they find a box canyon with a waterfall to make camp in.
  Instead: Sabrina proves to be worse than useless, having the sexist attitude that men are meant to provide for women. She complains about Vincent needing to "step up his game" after he has difficulty hunting and foraging for food. Despite reportedly being an expert on plant identification, she makes no efforts to find edible plants and instead spends her days at their camp, casting protective spells and wood-crafting pentacles.
  It Gets Worse: Vincent is force to tap out due to having contracted multiple tropical diseases. Sabrina almost makes it to Day 21, but is forcibly evacuated after she contracts food poisoning from trying to eat a decaying parrot head left behind by some animal with better sense about what was and wasn't edible. Despite all this, Sabrina's PSR still went up since she managed to survive for a few days on her own.

• Episode 302: Blood In The Water: Adventurer Dani and paramedic Justin team up to survive in the remote Andros Islands.
  You'd Expect: Justin to be happy to have a partner who is as capable as he is.
  Instead: He complains about the traditional gender roles being flipped when illness forces him to stay at camp, maintaining the fire while Dani goes off hunting. He refuses to eat any of the food she provides and lets the fire die out of spite.
  As A Result: Suffice it to say, there's a reason Dani returned for Naked and Afraid XL and not Justin.

• Episode 303: Hearts Of Darkness: In this episode two former military survivalists, Carrie and Tom, are teamed to face the jungles of Cambodia.
  You'd Expect: This team to be disciplined and inclined to working well together.
  Instead: While the couple do fairly well at securing the bare necessities needed to survive, they prove incapable of working together. Carrie pegs Tom as a born officer, capable of giving orders and little else. Carrie, by contrast, wanders off on her own after growing bored with just sitting around the camp. Despite finding food on her journey, Tom complains about her not getting firewood like he told her to.
  It Gets Worse: On the final day, both Carrie AND Tom wind up spilling the water they prepared for their long walk to extraction. Carrie winds up leaving Tom behind and walks away with the map showing the route out. He eventually finds her two miles upstream from their camp... when their extraction point was downstream. Even with the map they wound up on the wrong side of the cove that was mean to be their extraction point and - with daylight running out - the rescue chopper was sent out to them.
  As A Result: Despite completing the 21-day challenge, both of them saw their PSR scores go down.

• Episode 310: Dunes Of Despair: In this episode, herbalist Honora and survival-skills teacher Matt are dropped in the Brazilian desert. Their resources are limited to Matt's homemade machete and a magnifying glass given to Honora by her father.
  You'd Expect: That they would use the magnifying glass and the intense sun to make fire.
  Instead: Honora instead tries to use the magnifying glass to purify water through focused UV radiation.
  As A Result: While technically possible, this is a time consuming process and a lot of the day is wasted. It is also nonsensical given that it requires Honora to sit in the sun at the hottest times of the day, risking heatstroke and sunburn.
  Later On: Honora berates Matt for being lazy, out of shape, stupid and smelling bad after he refuses to help her hunt because, as a vegan, he doesn't eat meat. Given that Matt later has no qualms about killing animals for Honora, it is clear that his earlier refusal is more about following Honora's hairbrained hunting schemes than hunting in itself.
  You'd Expect: Honora to hunt early in the morning or at dusk.
  Instead: Honora wastes precious energy hunting in the middle of the day, apparently being unaware that most desert animals are nocturnal and hide underground during the day. Eventually she demands a "divorce" from Matt, wanders off on her own and spends her days slowly baking to death looking for animals in the desert, pausing only to continue trying to purify water with her magnifying glass.
  Gee, Whaddya Know: She has to be evacuated due to severe heatstroke several days later.

• Episode 404: Edge of Madness: In this episode, survival-skills teacher Zach and stay-at-home mom Afften tackle the Rupununi Savannah of Guyana.
  You'd Expect: For them to do quite well since, given the harshness of the terrain, they were given an extra survival tool beside the usual one-each and Afften was allowed to keep her glasses - a privilege no other survivalist had been allowed until this point.
  Instead: Afften showed a complete lack of basic survival skills, despite reportedly having been taught Cherokee wilderness lore by her grandfather. She began suffering from heat exhaustion on the first day, after refusing to cover herself with mud like Zach did.
  As A Result: She taps out after seven days, leaving Zach to eventually survive the challenge alone, despite a 102 degree fever and heat exhaustion the show's medic feared might cause permanent brain damage.
  Even Worse: During her time on the show, Afften complains non-stop about everything, from missing her family, to the heat, to the taste of the water Zach boiled for her to the taste of the surprisingly plentiful food Zach was able to procure. Zach has to survive the challenge alone due to her ineptitude, suffering severe heat exhaustion and a 102 degree fever in the process.
  You'd Expect: Afften to emerge from this experience with a greater sense of humility.
  Instead: As Zach is slowly dying, Afften returns home and shoots a video - featured on the episode - where she assures any haters watching the show that she is still a Ball of Awesomeness despite tapping out and stating that she'd love to compete on the show again.
  As A Result: Fan outrage on-line reaches unanimous and critical levels, with Afften being declared to have unseated Honora as the single worst survivalist in the show's history.

• Episode 501: Forsaken: Retired police officer/soldier Gary and baker/single mom Kim are teamed to face the dangers of the jungle island of San Jose.
  You'd Expect: Gary, being an ex-soldier and retired police officer, to lead the way to victory.
  Instead: Gary proves to be a combination of the worst traits of Jeff and Shane. Like Jeff, Gary is fanatically religious and refuses to share body heat with Kim during the freezing cold nights. Like Shane, he mocks his teammate's skills constantly while proving to be far less competent.
  As A Result: His ineptitude forces him to tap out after exhausting himself with needless work. Kim goes on to do the entire 21 days on her own.