The Most Dangerous Television Show

You're in the wilderness, miles from home, maybe from civilization itself. You're handed a rudimentary map of the area and a compass, along with a sympathetic pat on the back and a look that says “you poor bastard”. “Mantracker is three kilometeres behind you”, they say, “so you should maybe start running.”

Mantracker is Terry Grant. He knows a thing or two about finding people in the wilderness, having spent twelve years of his life rescuing people in the Alberta Foothills. While this was no doubt an exciting line of work, it seems that it wasn't enough for Mantracker. He craved more; exchanging looks of heartfelt gratitude for panicked fear, he now chases hapless volunteers through the forest on his horse. The prey have thirty-six hours to make the sometimes thirty kilometre hike to the goal, usually with multiple paths to take. Stick to trails for speed? Press through the bush for cover? The slightest of errors can give them away. Mantracker takes notice of out-of-place leaves, broken twigs, rocks that have been moved, things the average person wouldn't consider an obviously followable trail. He tries to guess what his quarry is thinking, predicting what they will do. He's usually right. The prey have managed to outwit him on a few occasions, but the odds are stacked heavily in his favour. One episode saw two girls actually hitching a ride to the end point; a visibly frustrated Mantracker dutifully followed their trail, watching it turn from footprints to car tracks, cutting away before he drank a saloon dry, or dueled someone at high noon, or whatever it is cowboys do when they're angry these days.

The natural evolution of reality television demonstrates that within the next few seasons Mantracker will be hunting down washed up celebrities instead of average folk. Imagine the epic battle that would be Mantracker vs. Hillary Duff; the evenly matched pairing of Mantracker vs. fellow OLN superstar Survivorman; the hilarious taunting that would spring from Mantracker vs. Nardwaur the Human Serviette. Ratings would soar! Canada is sometimes lacking in its pool of widely recognized celebrities, however, and our politicians often end up filling this void for us. This could mean a few special episodes where we get to watch as down our most beloved political leaders are ruthlessly hunted down. The odd-couple pairing of Paul Martin and Jean Chretien, for example, could make for some pretty good television.