OK, I’ll easily admit that I’m a sucker for reality show competitions. Couple that with my fascination for Russian things and this is right up my alley.
The premise: 16 folks are dropped off in the middle of Siberia, Russia with “no rules” and two cabins with some basic supplies and that’s it. It’s like Survivor without the reward challenges and the gratuitous skin. There’s a box that will from time to time give an item of value and an emergency button if a person wants to quit.
The cast is a bit more worldly than a typical reality show it seems with a person from Australia, Columbia, Iceland, Canada, UK and more.
The premiere episode is available On Demand on Comcast.
My wife is a fan of all things reality tv and I watched it with her. They did a great job with the first episode keeping things real for the most part, I was certainly fooled. When the disaster struck at the end of the episode, she figured it was a setup to fool the contestants. I looked around online and discovered the truth, but despite that, my curiosity is piqued to see how well they can pull it off. It’s a mix of Found Footage Horror and The Onion’s ‘Sex House’.
Never under estimate the dumb-ness of America. Allegedly, there were serious facebook and twitter posts complaining that the ABC show Whodunnit was actually killing contestants!
In my own defense, I never heard of the show, just stumbled on it as she was watching it. If it was played up as a drama, then I HOPE she realized it was fake and was just playing me, sigh.
I actually quite enjoyed it. The “reality show” setup was quite well done- even though I knew that it’s actually scripted, I kept second-guessing myself and wondering if maybe I’d just misheard, that it was really a reality show. Of course, it helps that it’s exactly the sort of reality show I would watch: the contestants “abandoned” in the wilderness, no silly games, no rules. I was a big fan of SurvivorMan.
I actually found myself not wanting to see the short preview for the upcoming season, ‘cause I wanted to be surprised by how effin’ *weird *it’s going to get.
They sure do have a lot of characters, don’t they? I imagine they’re going to kill off at least one an episode.
Caught the premiere. (Yes, I am watching an amazing amount of TV lately, and don’t forget American Ninja Warrior recently kicked off its fourth season.) Looks like one of those “indictment of modern society” dealies coupled with a Blair Witch-esque creepy mystery vibe. From what I’ve seen, it’s going to move pretty quickly, especially with the, ahem, eliminations, more like a miniseries. (I seriously doubt they’re going to get anywhere near winter. Red herring, folks. Red herring.)
As long as there’s a greater underlying point behind all this instead of just weirdness for the sake of weirdness (I’m looking at you, Twin Peaks), it has potential.
I will say that it did a great job selling the initial premise, right down to the sacrificial lambs who are brought on, given a few minutes of face time, and shown the door. (For once they’re the lucky ones! )
They must be given a task such as starting a fire or finding the mushrooms, and that was believable, but their reactions to the injuries (and worse) were off. They should be freaking out, asking for details on what really happened, and pushing that damn red button en-masse.
I saw it, although the characters seemed like overly done stereotypes they definitely made it seem like a reality show. Not really worried about watching more.
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