We liked Long Way Round, Long Way Down is OK but their relationship was suffering mostly due to the forced incorporation of Ewan's wife. We also think the poor planning and the addition of personal iPods had an impact since they could isolate from each other. One would think that isolation is a good thing but on a fast paced trip like the one's they did it creates an escape instead of dealing with each issue head on... resentment builds up, then boom. The last one, Long Way Up, was horrible. The diesel truck following them with a generator to charge the bikes defeats the whole purpose, an astute viewer can catch glimpses of it. We drove from Alaska to Argentina and can unequivocally say that none of the super fast trips do it any justice. Burning the miles running scared isn't worth doing, a trip like any of the one's they did shouldn't be a check box sort of thing. Side Note - we happened to be in the region of Mexico they were scared about when they barreled through. We would of reached out, had we known. Like most of the high paced eye candy productions, traditional overlanders are rarely included because they want the viewers to think they are the only one's out there (Mexico also has a ton of people driving around in regular RVs).
The first one was a trip they wanted to do then expanded to making a production out of it. The next two seemed to be just to make money. What the first two capture are travel dynamics. The first one their relationship is good until they hit fatigue in Alaska, why running hard cannot be sustained. The second one started off rocky and progressively got worse. The last one is just looking for charging stations in countries that don't have the infrastructure for electric vehicles. The electric bikes limited their route so much it's a great disservice to the beauty of South and Central America. We obviously have a differing opinion from most since we've spent years doing one of the trips they did in 100 days.
