Interesting new reality show on Discovery Channel starting July 21. Ten strangers trying to survive an unspecified disaster. Will be interesting to see the ETS community's take on it after episodes air.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/colony/colony.html


The Colony Group

What would you do in the wake of a global catastrophe? How would you find food? Water? Shelter?

The Colony is a controlled experiment to see exactly what it would take to survive and rebuild under these circumstances. For 10 weeks, a group of 10 volunteers, whose backgrounds and expertise represent a cross-section of modern society, are isolated in an urban environment outside Los Angeles and tasked with creating a livable society.

With no electricity from the grid, no running water and no communication with the outside world, all the volunteers have to work with are their skills and whatever tools and supplies they can scavenge from their surroundings.

Experts from the fields of homeland security, engineering and psychology have helped design the world of The Colony to reflect elements from both real-life disasters and models of what the future could look like after a global viral outbreak.

Over the course of the 10-week experiment, the Colonists must work together to build the necessities of survival, such as a water-filtration system, a battery bank that powered their electricity, a solar cooker, a shower system and a greenhouse – and even some niceties (a coffee maker!).

Tune in Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 10 p.m. ET/PT to see who thrives and who fails to survive


more detail:

The experiment takes place within an abandoned 50,000-square foot warehouse located on a three-and-a-half acre plot in downtown Los Angeles. The warehouse is infested with rats and pigeons, two urban creatures that are likely to survive in the event of a global disaster. In fact, the entire warehouse setting was designed by homeland security, engineering, and psychology experts, who based it on what real-life examples and predictive models suggest a post-catastrophe society might look like. Various tools and food items will be sparsely and strategically placed around the warehouse to represent the resources that might realistically be available to survivors of an urban disaster.

Hmmm... I just hope that isn't like all of these "reality" shows, an interesting idea that usually turns into crap once the editing starts.

Having worked behind the scenes of some "reality" television and seen just what kind of manipulations of reality take place for dramatic effect, I don't expect much.

I will say that I'd be more likely to watch something like this on the Discovery Channel rather than on MTV. I'd really like to see at least one of these type shows portray what can happen when people work together for a common goal instead of making it a "last man standing" kind of thing. But apparently the producers have decided that their audiences prefer the absurdity of "Survivor" with the theoretical reality that a show like this one could produce.

If things go like most reality shows do, we'll all have our heroes and villains picked out by the 3rd week...;^)

In the meantime, I'll hit up some sources and see if I can find the building that they used...

Interesting. I'll record the first episode or two and see how it goes. But any Real World type-shenanigans or anything of that nature and I stop watching...

I just hope that they keep it simple - no instruction book, no clues in envelopes, just drop them off and say "GO!"

a 50,000 sq ft warehouse? Wow I have to see this set up. That is basically the size of a super market and thats their environment?

Perhaps if they are supposed to be Bugging In, this will work. I will have faith it will be compelling. I will keep an open mind. I wouldn't have minded them using say a gated community instead, with lots of houses, some destroyed, some livable and finding things to help them along as they progress through the community and connect with people.

Do you think there will be Zombies outside trying to get in. haha.

Downtown LA? There will be NO shortage of Zombies at Anytime!LOL!

It seems these reality shows focus far too much on the interpersonal conflicts and not enough on substance. I understand that getting along with others in the group is paramount, but I would rather see the skills demonstrations take up more air time. Even Les Stroud's "Survive This" has far too much drama for my taste, but what do you expect from a gaggle of teens? If you put some of the kids from this forum together in a group, I'd say the outcome would be much different, and Les might be told to go away, because they are having too much fun going native. Ha!

Maybe buy one of the neiborhoods in Michigan that the cities where talking about down sizing and use that.

One thing that I am concerned about is of the producers will push them toward a "Green" alterntive to work with, and promote some of the other things that I have been seeing on that network. Not that I am not in favor of useing those alterntives but realistly how many solar pannels are just sitting around waiting to be setup.

I think the Discovery Channel has a better chance than most of making it a watchable show, More about how a group will work together to survive, rather that about the in fighting about who is doing more work.

Wow. great point Cap613. What will be a self-generated survival concept voted on by the people involved or what will the producers direct them to do.

Over on the program's website they show some of the stuff they built. In one case they built an electrical power system using solar panels they removed from traffic signs. They even built a sun-tracking system for it to maximize the power output.

Another thing they built was a woodgas generator to power a small gasoline motor. Woodgas is basically just the flammable gases produced by wood as it is converted to charcoal. It's not a very green energy source as you are still releasing carbon dioxide. So I'd say they aren't limited to just green possibilities.

-Blast

I have caught a couple of commercials, and, although I couldnt tell specifically what they were using it for, they appeared to have either a diesel or oil burner going. I did not even think of the "green" concept being pushed...thats a good call. Although, if it came down to being green, or being alive, well, I am sure we all would choose the same.
I dont think that finding solar panels in the LA area would be all that hard though, depending on how far out you would look. It looks interesting, to say the least...I, for one, will be tuning into it.