Alone: The Beast

Everything that made the first seasons of Alone interesting: contestants were actually alone; the length of the season allowed us to get to know them; no camera crews, just one-on-one are missing in Alone: The Beast.

One episode covers the three teammates being dropped off, caching the large amount of food they've been given and building shelter. There's very little info on their backstories, no real insights into them as people. Since they know they only have to stick it out for 30 days they hunker down with their food and endure it.

The text explanations about potential food contamination, predators, primitive tools and what First Nations did to survive are repeated on each program. By the second episode there was nothing new.

I watched two episodes, which was one too many. This series should not be called Alone. It's a three person team and a camera crew which has none of the interest of the original series. Skip this one and watch the real Alone.

I like the concept of throwing 3 strangers in a group on the artic without equipment. Even with a fresh kill in the cold thats very challenging. The problem for me is that 30 days isnt very long and to boot everything needs to happend within the timeframe of 1episode.

Thus you miss out on a lot of details and struggles of the participants that make the regular shows so great. I feel they should instead make it 60 days and give each team a few episodes.

Some groups work very well together, but as a viewer you hardly get to seem them really bond, thats a shame.

It isnt clear either how the groups are formed, some groups seem far stronger then others.

Alone: The Beast is a pretty run of the mill survival show, comparable to other 60-minute format shows out there. Part of the show is self filmed and much of the daytime episodes include a camera crew for some shots. Because the contestants are given no equipment and are granted an initial substantial source of food they spend most of their time conserving energy and avoiding any activities of real entertainment value. Also, because it's a fixed term (30 day) survival situation the contestants aren't incentivized to dig in and develop meaningful long-term survival tactics.

This show lacks most of the magic of the original series where you seem to develop a personal relationship with the contestants and learn about who they are and why they're there. If you cut away the life changing money, the competition against other people, the highs and the lows of lone survival, and the season-long wait to see who triumphs, you get this series. I understand the need to refresh the brand and the format but this is just a unmemorable exercise in primitive survivial.

First episode started out good and I thought the concept could make for an interesting change to the usual Alone format. However any sense of the challenge and difficulty of the task is lost entirely by cramming 30 days into 40 minutes. There's no getting to know the participants, no sense of struggle or overcoming difficulty and it feels very unrewarding as a result.

On the last few days in the first episode they were desperately trying to catch a fish and talking about how they needed the fat to survive. That might be a valid concern long term but they were extracted just a couple days after finally getting one making the endeavour pointless. They could have just waited out the last few days and not worried about fishing or hunting.

I gave up on the second episode when I realised it was just going to be exactly the same thing with different contestants, who in this case were already annoyingly moaning at each other and being passive aggressive on day one.

All the show essentially boils down to is properly processing the meat on the first couple days and then riding out the month rationing it out and enduring it. There's none of the challenge and progress of the original show. Interesting to watch the first episode to see them processing the meat but beyond that it feels pointless to watch the rest of the series.

They've dropped the ball really badly. This is right on par with Naked and Afraid with showing the same footage over and over again. Add some facts about dangers the competitors will never come close to and there you have it. They're given more than enough food just to hunker down and lose weight for the period.

Everything that was great about Alone has been lost.