On the hit Discovery series Manhunt with Joel Lambert, we’ve seen the Ex-Navy Seal playing an extreme game of hide-and-seek against some of the best military forces. The premise of the show is simple, Lambert gets dropped into foreign territory and he’s given between 12 to 48 hours to evade capture in order to get to an extraction zone in order to ‘escape’.
In season one, we saw the ex-Navy Seal tackle some of the world’s most elite forces and now, Lambert is evidently hungry for more action as he returns to action for the second season of Manhunt with Joel Lambert. Arriving in Kuala Lumpur recently for a special Discovery Channel preview, Lambert spoke about the upcoming season and what it takes to evade capture.
What’s the first thing you do when you’re dropped into ‘enemy’ territory?
It’s always important to gauge your surroundings first so I always make it a point to stop, look and listen just to get a feel of the area. You’ll start noticing stuff immediately like a flock of birds flying away from an area, which could give a clue that there could be enemies approaching. Then you have to work out your basic survival tactics, which are water, food and shelter. All of this helps with the task at hand, which is evasion.
What do you take with you on your travels?
I have a mini survival pack or evasion kit that I put together with basic but valuable items that will help me survive out in the field. It’s just a sturdy water bottle, which I pack with a number of items that will help me with the basic and important stuff like starting a fire and purifying water. I normally pack in stuff like waterproof matches, cotton balls covered in petroleum jelly, a magnesium stone and things like that.I also carry a heat stone, which I can heat and then drop into my container to boil water.
What’s the toughest terrain you had to go through?
Probably the jungle in the Philippines as it was mostly secondary growth areas and it was thick. Getting through that was tough and it negated my advantage of speed quite a bit.
We’ve seen you rely on booby traps, is that part of your game plan to evade capture?
Well first of all, I love to do booby traps, because it slows them down and psychologically, it also gets inside their head. My traps are pre-prepared mostly and it takes a few minutes to set up but it’s one of those things where you’re giving up time to gain an advantage.
Anything interesting happen in Manhunt Season II?
There’s an episode where I had to go up against Bloodhounds, which was extremely hard because they’re excellent tracking/hunting dogs with an acute sense of smell. I had my hands full in that episode and some pretty interesting things did happen and it’s definitely one of the exciting episodes of season II.
Season Two of Manhunt With Joel Lambert premieres Tuesday, 7 July at 9pm on Discovery Channel (Astro Ch 551)
