I'm up to episode 5, but don't think I'll go any further. As one of the competitors says before they decide to leave - 'this isn't the show I signed up for'.
It's either fake and mostly staged (which it certainly feels like), or it's real and pretty unethical on the part of the producers.
Why? Because they thought it might make good tv to invite a few 'criminal sociopaths' (as one of the competitors perfectly describes them) along for the ride. So you have around 3 groups of people who seem like decent enough folk, just trying to survive in the freezing wilderness....and another group of people who are absolutely awful. Bullying the other teams, stealing their gear etc. People who would surely be in and and out of prison in the 'real world'. The neighbours from hell. Don't tell me the producers didn't know they'd act like this.
Or they're all amateur actors, and it's staged. Some of the 'performances' are certainly hammy enough, and there's some awfully convenient 'coincidences' and unlikely occurrences. In which case, why waste your time?
