The contestants in Netflix’s addictive new reality show are forced to work together whether they like it or not – and they really do not like it. No wonder all hell breaks loose …
The 16 contestants selected for new reality show Outlast, who will compete to survive in Alaska’s freezing wilderness for an $11m prize, are “lone wolves”, which I think is American for “introverts with outdoor skills”. Some of them (and I’m naming no names, not least because it is near-impossible to tell them apart under 20 layers of survivalwear apiece) are clearly deluded alpha males, who last about 10 minutes before the medivac team is called in to administer internet and coffee. But the rest – most of whom attest to hardscrabble childhoods spent under the wings of semi-prepper grandpappies, or in impoverished towns surrounded by woodland that offered a more hospitable environment once you’d learned how to purify water and set snares for dinner – are the real deal. Yoga instructor Amber learned a wider set of survival skills during her time as a heroin addict and felon, and after “being shot in the face by the man I loved”. You have to put her in with a chance.
The twist is that these lone wolves must form teams and work together in order to win. No one who crosses the finish line alone will qualify for the prize. It is the American ideal of togetherness and/or the sadism the country would like to perpetrate upon its introverts. E pluribus unum, whether you like it or not.
