Alone

I've never felt the need to write a review on IMDb, but the few people who don't give this show a high rating seem to be the only ones writing reviews.

Alone is not so much a survival show as a psychology experiment. The contestants are dropped in a dangerous wilderness with just the barest necessities and left to their own devices. Besides having to find shelter, food, and drinkable water, they have to deal with being alone all the time for as long as they can stand. Some of you probably don't realize how hard it is to deal with loneliness. Just watch a prison show and see how people break down in solitary confinement.

The one thing they have for company is a little hand camera, and the contestants that last long enough really open up to it. The longer the season lasts the more they bare their soul for all to see. To me it's the most fascinating TV I've ever seen. It makes you appreciate your food, your home, and the people around you more, just by showing you were you'd be without them.

Finally a proper survival show. Mind you, it has many flaws. But it is a monumental step forward for this type of shows.

There is no need for you to know this but I consistently write negative reviews about survival shows. There are a handful of reasons for this but, essentially, they let me down.

Not this time. From producers and crew to the "contestants", everyone has tried to do the show the way it should be done.

The heart of 'Alone' are the folk competing. As time goes on and their situation evolves, viewers are presented with a soulful, tearful at times, rendering of woes and struggles.

Some people get "in their own heads", eventually freaking themselves out into an exit. Their rationalizations are poignant, and cruel, and humbling,... and only become more so as the days pass.

Some people endure and the ones that do, do it on a shoestring. Literally. They gradually devolve into physical and psychological miserable existences, bringing to the fore the inherent, real difficulties involved in true survival situations.

This is not Bear Grylls on a weekend adventure... although, I will say, that's a guy that I would like to see competing on this show.

Anyway.

Some of these guys put their very heart (and then some) on the line. Here is a shout-out to their courage and my appreciation for taking us there, to the edge, with them.

Respect.

Although TV series like SURVIVOR can be quite entertaining they are for the more part very much manipulated in multiple ways, the producers put up challenges that they think will benefit certain more interesting characters and conflicts are at times nothing more than a production.

Here we get none of that, no votes or backstabbings or alliances, no competitions to get immunity or extra nurishments etc. Not even any contact with any outside human sources such as a camera crew or anything because they have to film their experience themselves.

The rules are really simple, 10 people are taken to isolated places in the wilderness miles apart from each other. They then have to try to survive off the land, build shelter and find food sources to last them as long as possible.

All while surrounded by packs of wolves, bears and cougars and dealing with often extreme weather conditions.

The person who stays the longest wins, 500 000 dollars.

So there are no gimmicks or game twists merely survival of the fittest and that is why this is a reality series that is definitely well worth checking out.

I was born in Yellowknife on Great Slave lake where this year Alone Artic is filmed. One no offence but this is not the Artic, it Boreal forest / borderline tundra but not the Artic. Great Slave is 400kms below the Artic Circle and over 1000 kms as a raven flys from Inuvik 3600kms by road (one of many true 'Artic' locations to base such a series from. Artic to a Northerner is the land of the Inuit not the Deni people. Also this show was filmed when there was still a lot of light and no real freezing (there is a 6 metre (20') thick solid surface of ice over Great Slave I the winter (there is a major Ice Hwy. from Hay River to Yellowknife) every winter. So saying these are 'Artic" conditions is like slightly stretching the truth lol. Do not get me wrong, I'm enjoying the series but some honesty about this years true 'location' would be nice. So like showing a northern Boreal Forest setting in early fall, is not the Canadian Artic sorry to burst anyones bubble. Northerner

As someone who has spent a great deal of time in the back country I can say without a doubt that this is the realest of reality shows. I find it very entertaining watching the contestants do the wrong or right thing and then deal with consequences of there choices. I have also learned a thing or two - like using a tarp to build a boat or something that will float (never considered that, but I have a canoe so I never had to). The longest amount of time I have ever spent alone is 6 days and I have been alone for days many times over the years. I can tell you first hand it can really mess with your head.

Storms, vermin, predators, insects even the silence it all effects you. My hat is off to all the contestants who survived for even a few weeks. Your all winners in my book.