Alone (Sunday, 9pm, Channel 4) is reality TV with stakes so high that the contestants spend each night worrying they are about to be eaten by wild animals. If that’s not enough to get you watching then I’m not sure what is. If you had to script an episode of Alone, you’d start with someone going: “Shit, is that a bear?”, then they’d say: “I didn’t think this would be so hard”, then they’d get so hungry that they try to eat a twig, then they’d say: “Shit, I think that is a bear” and on it goes. It is repetitive, predictable, and I love it.
The format is well established in the US, where there have been 10 seasons, most of which made their way on to the recesses of various subscription services over here. It’s a survival show but without the superficial camaraderie of the ones where people are forced to join forces to knock up a raft out of cabers and dental floss. Here, 11 people who have an interest in the great outdoors or want to push themselves out of their everyday routines – though the sensible among us may argue that a pottery course would be a happy medium – agree to be dropped miles apart in an inhospitable wilderness. For its UK debut, the contestants arrive on the fringes of the Arctic Circle in Canada with no food, no water and only 10 chosen items to keep them going. In order to win £100,000, they have to simply stick it out for the longest. Viewers are getting value for money. While some contestants mess it up within hours, others endure it for a spectacularly lengthy period of time. The record on the US Alone is 100 days.
