There’s a new show running on Discover called “The Colony.”
“The series, which throws together 10 people to survive holed up in a warehouse after a simulated epidemic has destroyed civilization, chooses a group of people whose skills and knowledge would have special use in this Road Warrior world. There are engineers, a nurse, a machinist, a handyman, a doctor.
To help simulate the stress of the experience, the participants start off by being sleep-deprived for 30 hours. Then cabin fever—plus deprivation from coffee, cigarettes, booze and other comforts—kicks in. Many reality shows—say, Big Brother—give participants alcohol and other indulgences to get them to act out. The Colony tries to accomplish this by taking things away. (TIME Magazine)”
The premise of this show reminded me of a reality series that used to play on PBS featuring modern people trying to live like early settlers: Colonial house, for example, focused on the difficulties of establishing a colony at Plymouth. I’m intrigued, because it seems like the denizens of our future apocolyptic world are going to have to deal with a lot of the same issues that our first colonists did.
And also zombies.
The Colony plays Tuesday nights at 10 on the Discovery Channel.