Expedition Africa

This summer's guilty pleasure on television, at least for me, is the History Channel's Expedition Africa, which airs on Sunday nights at 9:00 pm CST. Produced by Survivor's Mark Burnett, it has some of the same elements as his hit franchise and the people are about as likeable. The premise is this: more than 130 years ago famous explorer Dr. Stanley Livingstone disappeared deep in the interior of Tanzania. The person sent to find him was journalist Henry Stanley, using only a compass and virtually no experience, covering about 970 miles of uncharted territory. The famous adventure spawned the even more famous line, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" after finding the lost explorer living in a village almost 8 months later. So what's a group of camera-ready survivalists, egocentric nature experts and a hunky but inexperienced journalist supposed to do? Why, recreate the adventure, of course. As expected, the clash of egos is hilarious and there is the inevitable "tragedy" usually involving a snake or small injury....or both. And since it's Mark Burnett, someone is gonna be eating larvae! No disappointments here. Right now the group is about to mutiny on pushy navigator Pasquale. Ironically, Stanley's own team tried to kill him at about the same place for similar reasons. Great tv! Go here to catch up with full episodes but try to tune in if you can. If we're going to be sweltering in 100° temps, at least it's fun to watch people who are doing the same with no air conditioning and a lot worse food.