About this season
Tough Guy or Chicken? is a 2009 reality television series shown on BBC Three. It involves five young British men spending four months travelling the world taking tough challenges with deadly animals and in hostile locations. The series is made up of 8 episodes where, in each, the men are taken to a different part of the world to take on the different challenges that await them. If they are not up for the tasks required of them they fail the given challenge.
Episodes (8)
1. Ecuador
Aired 20 August 2009 • 60 min
To start their epic journey they travel high into the Andes where they must become chagras - the weathered, hard-as-nails cowboys of Ecuador. They do battle with the local, deadly fighting bulls, many of which end up in bullrings across South America.
2. Siberia
Aired 27 August 2009 • 60 min
Continuing their epic journey they travel to the Siberian arctic to become Evenki reindeer herders, a people who have survived in one of the most hostile locations for thousands of years. This is about learning to deal with extreme cold without home comforts.
3. Mexico
Aired 3 September 2009 • 60 min
The adventurers head into the jungle of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and become cave-divers in a vast network of largely uncharted, pitch-black, underwater tunnels.
4. Amazon
Aired 10 September 2009 • 60 min
The adventurers join boys of the Jaminawa tribe in the Brazilian Amazon and endure six days of a jungle initiation to become men. To succeed they must follow the rules of Jaminawa shaman Carlito, who has taught generations of boys the secrets of the jungle the hard way.
5. Namibia
Aired 17 September 2009 • 60 min
After two months on the road, they have arrived in blistering heat of the Namibian bush for their fifth challenge - to join the Ju-Wasi tribe of San Bushmen on a traditional hunt in an extremely inhospitable environment.
6. Bahamas
Aired 24 September 2009 • 60 min
After the pain of the Amazonian jungle and the arid heat of the Namibian bush, they have come to paradise - the Bahamas. Unfortunately for them their challenge lies underwater, in the shape of sharks.
7. Bangladesh
Aired 2 October 2009 • 60 min
The lads' penultimate challenge is going to be one of the most deadly, as they have come to Bangladesh to learn to catch venomous snakes. Master snake king Shoporaj Dholu has just six days to train them up and keep them alive.
8. Japan
Aired 9 October 2009 • 60 min
They have reached Japan for the last of their challenges. They have just six days to become Buddhist Yamabushi monks and take part in one of the toughest pilgrimages on the planet to the summit of a sacred mountain, under the watchful eye of Miyagi-San, their Master.