The Colony

I'm no fan of reality TV, but I make an exception for The Colony, because it's more meaty. The scenario is that a viral outbreak has devastated Mankind, leaving relatively few survivors. The volunteers for the "experiment" are 10 individuals with diverse backgrounds, and we get to watch as they attempt to survive in an admittedly artificially constrained environment: a cordoned-off warehouse in L.A.

Two things make the show special. First, the group is so immersed in the situation that the emotions are real for them, which is fascinating. Second, they do builds that are interesting and sometimes amazing.

From comments the participants have made outside the show, it's fairly obvious that things were about as real as they could be, within this totally artificial situation. On the Discovery forums, Mike the mechanic wrote:

"WE...and I say this again,,,,,,,,WE had NO HELP from crew or anyone else!!!!!!!!!"

You can almost hear him shouting. And on his blog page, uber electrical engineer John C. wrote:

"One thing I really loved about the show was that everything they showed that worked.. actually worked.. if it didn't work.. they'd show that it didn't work.. That was really important to me."

Despite this, the director was not content to just sit back and watch things unfold naturally, and instead prodded the group with events, such as actors playing the role of raiders. This sometimes comes off a bit silly, but at least there are no stupid contests.

It's a show that some love and some hate, so your mileage may vary.

OK, so I'm just going to make this short: The premise is that it's essentially a live action role play scenario.

That said, I think that what most of the reviews have missed so far is that the whole point of this show is to demonstrate a series of actual tasks that *might* have to be accomplished by survivors of an apocalyptic scenario. Yes, some of their successes are a bit far fetched, but to be real, that doesn't make for an entirely compelling narrative. We're not talking about Survivor, we're not talking about realism here. What we're experiencing is a social experiment of a variety.

The first season was more believably populated by people who I would trust in a survival situation, definitely. The second season is markedly less about actually skilled members of the team/colony and more about the psychological make up of a surviving group. Both seasons are compelling because they address many of the questions inherent to survival/post-apocalyptic films and fiction. Would a ragtag group be able to pull it together enough to make it through day-to-day? Would they be able to use enough common sense and basic knowledge to complete complicated and confusing tasks? Could they, ultimately, rely on one another for survival?

Would it be interesting to have it crewed/cast entirely by people who would be useful in a survival scenario: of course. Would it be likely or even realistic for that to be the case: Of course not.

As for staged scenarios, I really can't argue much on that, except to say it makes sense to have tasks be staged as well as to have the raiders and non-colony members be actors and have their reactions staged. That's part of the whole experiment, to demonstrate what's actually going to happen to social reasoning and our understanding of cultural imperatives.

I guess, to once again sum up, I'd say this: If you're looking for something that is compelling and true to life, set up your own colony with your own friends and see how it goes. If you want to see something that's as informative as entertaining, just watch the show and understand you're not watching Survivorman, you're not even watching Man vs. Wild.

I love this show - finally quality TV worth watching! I always learn so much watching and I love how each episode has different solutions to the same basic needs. I wish there were tons more to watch. Why doesn't anyone I ever tell about this show know it exists?! This should be on TV especially with all that is going on in this country and how many p r e p p e r s we have who would also love and appreciate this show.

I don't know why I need to write 10 lines of text. I said everything I needed to say already.

I love this show - finally quality TV worth watching! I always learn so much watching and I love how each episode has different solutions to the same basic needs. I wish there were tons more to watch. Why doesn't anyone I ever tell about this show know it exists?! This should be on TV especially with all that is going on in this country and how many p r e p p e r s we have who would also love and appreciate this show.

I liked the premise of this show when I saw the preview and so decided to give it a shot. While the first episode had some slightly over-the-top moments, I wrote them off to a bunch of new people all being nervous/excited on camera and trying to ham it up.

I invested too much time into the first few episodes and now I'm stuck until the finale, and the bad acting and ridiculous scenarios have gotten worse. This show is obviously choreographed, with multiple camera angles and edits during 'tense' moments. One can only assume that a director is yelling 'action' in-between takes.

If you don't like the idea of Bear Grylls being 'presented with situations' and having the availability of 'off-camera experts' to assist him, then you certainly won't like this show (in fact it has the same disclaimer). What's funny is that Man v Wild is actually more believable to me.

Do I want people to get killed on camera? No. But if a girl is a poor engineer, and she attempts to do something that would result in failure, then I expect her to NOT be helped. Show the failure. If a guy is doing something dangerous, then fine, jump in and stop him. But don't then go and teach him the right way so that he does it correctly, just cut him out of it completely. If The Colony never gets lights because there are no qualified electricians, then leave it at that.

Nearly every ridiculous *presented* task is successful. Is it too much to ask to simply want to see people pass or fail a task at the same rate they would in real life? Now THAT would be exciting TV. I want to see real ingenuity, not science projects guided step-by-step by the off-camera instructor.

This is reality-lite.

This show was fantastic, and if you liked season 1 season 2 is much more exciting. Several survivors in a staged disaster scenario then have to actually survive off the land, a million times more realistic than Survivor. Action packed, twists and turns, makes you feel you lived through it all, again amazing amazing show. This show makes you question, how prepared are we really? What would you do if you had to find water and food near you? Would you be empathetic to others if you had food and they didn't? at what lengths would you go to protect yourself and you family? The Colony is a great ride from beginning to end and ultimately makes you wonder could I survive?