The Colony

I was intrigued by the premise of this show, but quickly became turned off by how contrived it is.

I'm willing to suspend disbelief and accept that everyone in the group (or nearly everyone, since the marine biologist is pretty much useless) is highly skilled and trained in a field that is tailor-made for the situation. I guess in the post apocalypse no run-of-the-mill folks manage to survive and come together.

That being said, the ideas that the Colonists come up with each week strain credibility pretty far. I could buy it if every once in a while someone had an unusual solution to a problem, but when week-in, week-out they come up with elaborate solutions, I call foul. It all seems very contrived and likely fed to the Colonists by producers.

The second major problem is the appearance of needed materials. The Colonists apparently picked the greatest abandoned warehouse in the world to inhabitant. The warehouse miraculously produces whatever is needed to finish a project. Again just a little too contrived for me. The Colonists were never faced with abandoning a plan or doing something more simply because whatever they needed was magically found in the warehouse.

I'm guilty of watching the entire series. Once I watched a couple episodes, I felt I needed to finish it out. But, the last several episodes, my eyes were rolling quite a bit.

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 enjoyed this series a lot! It was like watching a movie such as "The Road" or "Book of Eli" without the rest of the BS, just lets see how things REALLY went day to day and how creative people can or can't be when faced with hard situations. I so enjoyed feeling a part of this journey, privileged to watch and learn from the trials the cast went through. Every item built to help them on their journey was amazing and I only hope if I was faced with the same issues I could help even half as much. I recommend this series to anyone who is interested in surviving a post apocalyptic world, there are many things and points made that might just make the difference in your living or dying, pay attention! ;)

A question that many of us ask, but few seriously consider, is what would the world be like after society collapsed? The Colony, a reality television show on Discovery, addresses just this, and I have to say it far surpassed any expectations I had for a reality show.

In both seasons, The Colony takes a group of a dozen people or so, each with a specific skill that may or may not be useful for survival—electrical engineering, medicine, even modeling. They tell these people that a virus has wiped out 90% of the Earth's population and that they must band together to try and rebuild society. They start with the basics like food, water, and shelter, but as the season progresses, the survivors get more creative and intricate with their colony and start building things for self-defense and electricity. Season 1 took place in an abandoned warehouse in Los Angeles, while season 2 was in a hurricane-ravaged neighborhood in New Orleans. Though the colonists obviously know they aren't in any real danger, the obstacles they must overcome are very real, and it only takes them the first few days to forget that they are, in fact, in a reality show. If society was to collapse as described in the show, I think The Colony offers a genuine look into how people would respond to the stresses of rebuilding society.

This post-apocalyptic reality show is as real as you can get without putting the contestants in any real danger. They're pushed to their limits, and never once does the crew step in to help them. Actors are even hired to harass our colonists, as gangs and marauders constantly attack the colony, never giving the survivors a moments rest. The Colony is recommended for survivalist fanatics or any person looking for an original, realistic reality show.