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.