A friend of mine turned me on to this show when it debuted on the defunct Fox Reality Channel, and I can not thank him enough. The premise is fantastic and leads to some of the most interesting psychology I've ever seen on a reality show.
Basically by the end of these seasons the contestants are for the most part, nuts. They've been without sleep for days, they've been put under extreme mental and physical duress, and still implicitly asked to perform for the cameras. You can watch as they invent entire worlds and personas for their unseen competitors, develop elaborate ideas of betrayal and jealously completely whole-cloth, and just simply straight up lose it like a Season 4 contestant who decided the whole thing was in his head.
The combination of mental tests, "prisoners dilemma" style social experiments, and physical endurance rounds makes this show absolutely fascinating.
Also, EVERYONE should watch this show for Season 4 alone. The absolutely phenomenal transformation of one of the more timid pod-dwellars into an absolute fearsome contender was a wonder to behold, and primarily one of the most genuine human growth moments I've ever witnessed.
... oh and I almost forgot the "evil AI" Val who runs the show is freaking FUNNY.
Seriously, gang, give Solitary a try.
Basically by the end of these seasons the contestants are for the most part, nuts. They've been without sleep for days, they've been put under extreme mental and physical duress, and still implicitly asked to perform for the cameras. You can watch as they invent entire worlds and personas for their unseen competitors, develop elaborate ideas of betrayal and jealously completely whole-cloth, and just simply straight up lose it like a Season 4 contestant who decided the whole thing was in his head.
The combination of mental tests, "prisoners dilemma" style social experiments, and physical endurance rounds makes this show absolutely fascinating.
Also, EVERYONE should watch this show for Season 4 alone. The absolutely phenomenal transformation of one of the more timid pod-dwellars into an absolute fearsome contender was a wonder to behold, and primarily one of the most genuine human growth moments I've ever witnessed.
... oh and I almost forgot the "evil AI" Val who runs the show is freaking FUNNY.
Seriously, gang, give Solitary a try.