User Reviews

Watched quite a few episodes and half enjoyed them and quickly thereafter too many things made no sense at all. Main thing was that with a seemingly successful show and the big checks that come quickly why are they having to do so many ignorant things to survive. The clothes all the sudden looked wrong for the part and always some disaster every show. It became fast obvious it is like so many other contrived TV or Hollywood nonsense shows. Reality right..more like unreality and silly crap. I quit watching it none too soon. I refuse to even watch one more episode. It is just another I have added to my list of do not watch the horrible mess shows.

I really wanted to believe in this show when it first came out. The premise of the show sounded good until you watch it and find out they don't live up to the premise of the show. Sadly I have watched every episode, not as a fan but as a critic. I follow a few groups about the show, several of the local people give their honest opinion and knowledge of the Brown's. In the groups you get to see pictures of them filming months before it comes out on TV. You also get to hear about all of the fake things that go on. And just because I know the show is 100% scripted doesn't make me a hater as a lot of people like to say, I am just stating the truth as seen by locals and a lot of peoples knowledge. The show is geared towards urban people that dream about living in Alaska. Obviously the people that believe in the show have absolutely no knowledge of outdoor life or survival. Truthfully ask yourself what would you have to do to survive in the bush and are the Brown's doing that? Anybody that says they are doesn't have a clue. Where is the firewood? the food?

Here are some fun truthful facts: Browntown is only a prop for filming. The house was built by a contractor. No one lives at Browntown. The Brown's spend their nights in Hoonah while filming. The island only has brown bears (in one scene it showed Matt chasing a black bear). They didn't shoot the deer, they don't qualify for hunting licenses. The property belongs to a relative of the mayor of Hoonah. Bear is 4'11" tall, Matt is 5'2" and the tallest is Gabe at 5'5". There are five communities on the same island, Hoonah is the largest. They have been around computers most of their lives. Birdy has a fake tooth she puts in after filming.

Here is the facts on their arrests: They got caught trying to defraud the state of Alaska out of over $21,000. They couldn't leave the state over 90 days at a time and still qualify. During the time period they were in the lower 48 for most of the time and the state had proof. They were all charges except for Matt and Rain. Matt didn't file and Rain was too young. Bam being the next oldest boy and he is the one that filed the paperwork had to serve with Billy. They plea bargained so only Bam and Billy had to do house arrest. They served their house arrest with ankle bracelets from April 13th to May 12th, 2016 at a posh hotel in Juneau. They had cable TV and room service for 30 days and yes the whole family stayed with them, they were never separated. They have 40 hours of community service to do also, the judge said that cannot be filmed. The show promotes an entirely different story of lies and deceit. This isn't the first time they got into trouble with the state of Alaska. In the 90's Ami and Billy got caught defrauding the state trying to get welfare money. They had to pay it back by the state taking money from their PFD checks. Matt got a DUI for hitting a car at 2 am in a Wal-mart parking lot. People are going to say what they want about my review, but it is the truth and there is so much more.

Odd balls: If they grew up on the water how come they didn't know how to sex a crab? Or drive a boat? Tie a knot? Billy says they spent 30 years on the water and 30 years living off of the land. Which is it? How come their garden was so small for 9 people? How come you don't see jars of canned food? Why don't they show family life in the house if the are supposed to live in there? Why cut the steps off when a bear could just climb up there anyway? How come we never see Billy have a "seizure"? How did he shoot the deer with the scope covers on? It's illegal to hunt grouse in the spring time, why did they show them doing that? Why doesn't NoDuh actually invent something instead of 7th grade science projects? Why did they hire an actress to pretend to date No-Duh? Why do they leave a giant mess every where they live?

A few opinions: I really can't stand NoDuh, he has an ego that is hard to beat. To compare himself to Tesla or Einstein just blew me away. How arrogant can you get? He has yet to invent anything. I mean any 12 year old could do anything that he has done. His weld job was like a 1st graders.

Why haven't the parents taught these kids to be independent? Isn't that the goal as a parent? They have really done the kids a grave injustice. Look at NoDuh, he can barely write his name. None of them have the skills it takes in life. I guess being home schooled by a 9th grade drop out really has it's perks. I would like to see the guys on "Alone", they wouldn't last 3 days and that is being generous. They have no survival skills.

Say what you want and believe what you want. I hope I opened your eyes enough to at least question this show. It has no future. I could of wrote forever and I probably overlooked a lot of stuff because the show is 100% scripted, the only thing real is that they are a family. I can back up everything I have stated too. The groups I belong to have all of the legal work that tells everything.

In real life back in 2008 in Port Protection, the "boys" would use the word dad all the time. "My dad said to come get these things" and would hand the Trading Post clerk a scrap of paper with a few things written on it. The "boys" would always be in pairs and there would just be a few items written on the scrap of paper, things like: toilet paper, paper towels, milk, bread, 2 Banquet fried chicken, pot pies, burritos, 12 Dr Pepper, 6 Pepsi, Marlboro's, camels, chocolate ice cream etc. They never bought alcoholic beverages but I did often see the "boys" including 16 year old Noah, down on the dock drinking beer and smoking pot with the fisherman. Matt was down there on the dock the most and often none of the other "boys" was with him later in the evening. Matt and Josh and I think Sol and Gabe smoked cigarettes, and they all 5 smoked pot at times. Matt always had a pack of cigarettes with him and smoked a lot including roll your own Top and Bugler tobacco. At the store, the "boys" would say, " oh and dad said we could get these things" and they would grab some snack items and junk food like cookies, Dr Pepper, chips like Funions etc. Then sometimes, just a short time later, another two of the "boys" would come in and do the same thing. In one day, this would happen a dozen times, always just a few items on the list, including items like paper towels and toilet paper and canned goods that were picked up more than once a day. Some friends of mine saw where the Browns later stashed boxes and boxes of things in the woods hidden under a tarp with brush and branches over it near where their maroon SUV was parked. When the Browns left, they had the roof of that vehicle piled high with boxes and covered with blue tarps and the inside packed with lots of things and all nine of them going down the logging road. They always said "on dad's account". The "boys" would always be in pairs, (Matt is the only one I ever saw alone and not often), always have a scrap of paper with items written on it by "dad" and always would get a few junk food items for themselves also. I was there every day and this happened every day for the more than the two months they were there that summer of 2008. People saw that SUV on the logging load loaded with boxes a few times before they left, so they were stashing boxes of things someplace else down the road. Every few days, Billy and some of the boys would leave in the SUV down the logging road for a few hours to most of a day sometimes. Billy ordered lots of things through the Trading Post on it's account, I unloaded the float plane with hundreds of pounds of boxes from the A&P Ketchikan grocery store, for the Browns. Many times after Jack, (WWCTrading Post owner) went home or when Jack was up at a community meeting, the Brown "boys" would load up the skiff and go over to the landing by the logging road and stash a bunch more boxes of things like cases of paper towels and cases of canned goods. At the end of the first month, a check came from TN for a couple thousand dollars towards the Browns' account, but then Billy had a sad story on how his good friend in TN that was his "backer/investor" had suddenly died but he had another "backer/investor", a lady in California and the Browns went on charging things for more than another month. By the then, in more than two months there, Billy's bill was over $40,000 including the rental of 4 skiffs for 3 months, lodging, charged on account groceries, fuel, other supplies and things came to head between in the office with Jack's office worker and Jack asking about the payments now way overdue on Billy's bill and Billy, who had all 5 "boys" in the small office yelling and threatening Jack and my friend, Jack's office worker. Billy was red faced, yelling, cursing, threatening Jack, Solomon jumping up and down bouncing and Gabe with fists clenched and raised. Fishermen friends on the dock heard the commotion and came up to outside the office and the Brown males left and went back upstairs to the lodge. I saw Matt and Gabe just a little while later out on the porch of the upstairs lodge laughing. TheBrowns left a few days later, not paying their bills, leaving a mess in the lodge and piles of garbage inside and outside and at another place that they had set up a tent at and trashed and garbage over on the parking area by where they loaded up their vehicle as well as in the woods nearby where they had stashed lots of boxes. Billy is a very good con-artist, amazingly, incredibly good at scamming people and getting what he's after. He has done it for decades and has been very successful at it. Billy's 5 sons and and his wife and the two daughters he has raised are also very good and week trained, going along with Billy on everything as a family. Billy is a very smart man when it comes to reading people and getting what he wants. I believe that he has even successfully conned Park Slope and Discovery as he has also conned producers, investors and backers over the last decade.