There have been a plethora of crazy TV series in recent years, take The World’s Toughest Race on Amazon Prime for instance, but nothing has quite taken the biscuit like The History Channel’s incredible (and absolutely brutal) reality TV show Alone, which aired its seventh season in October and can be watched on Sky now.
The premise is remarkably simple; ten tough-as-nails survivalists, all separated, alone and with just a handful of items between them (they’re allowed ten items from a pre-selected list of 40 tools), must try to live off the land in the most hostile environment on Planet Earth, the Arctic, for 100 days for the chance to win $1,000,000. Simple, right? Wrong!
Apart from the obvious problem, the fact that temperatures can go as low as -40°, these grizzled, modern-day Robinson Crusoes also have to contend with a thriving bear population, wolverines (No, not the Hugh Jackman one), packs of wolves, territorial moose and even porcupines! That’s just the local critters - once you factor in the frostbite, exhaustion, slips, falls, hunger and the fact that nobody in history has ever completed this feat before, that $1,000,000 starts to seem a lot less appealing.
Stingy grand prizes aside, this series itself is absolutely incredible. The contestants themselves are the crème de la crème of survival experts, each armed with a bounty of experience when it comes to living off the land, some through the military, others through passion. The homes they build to live in for those 100 days are so impressive that many wouldn’t look out of place on Grand Designs (One bloke even manages to install his own makeshift hot-tub). By the time the credits roll on the first episode, you’ll be scuttering straight into the back garden trying to build your own Doomsday hut from scratch.
More than anything, it’s damn inspiring stuff. In a world that’s more divisive than ever, where the finer aspects of mankind are maybe a little more clouded than usual, this show does a fantastic job at showing just what humans are capable of when pushed to their absolute limits - and trust us, across those 100 days, the few who actually manage to stick it for more than a week will certainly hit those limits.
If you’re stuck for something to watch or you’re just craving a bit of reality TV that’s I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here cranked all the way up to eleven, then the Arctic edition of Alone is the series for you. It can be found on The History Channel and on Sky catch-up now. You won’t regret it.
