The setup is pretty obvious, but also creative. Seven celebs have to survive about a week in the pitch blackness of the hangar-based set. Things start off pretty rough with a couple of the females being way too panicky and screaming a lot. Meanwhile Chris Eubank, the former boxing champion offers up continual opaque quasi-philosophical eccentricities, often seemingly at random. The rest of the cast is rounded out by some interesting characters such as former footballer and national legend, Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne (the only reason I even started watching the show), a couple of influencer types and a legally blind comedian who has less difficulty than most moving around in the facility.
Anyway to address the point raised by another user review, while Eubank may be an "introvert", that isn't why he didn't last and it certainly wasn't the case that he was being "baited" to do something violent. The show has an on-camera psychiatrist who comments along with the host and anything rising to the level of baiting, by the rest of the cast or the show runners, would have resulted in action on his part. The truth of the matter is that Eubank is a highly eccentric, very poorly understood individual who is a highly sensitive person and used to being the leader or "alpha" in his social interactions. Don't get me wrong, he's not a violent or bullying alpha, but more of a person who you can tell is used to people humoring (or actually taking to heart) his often meaningless ramblings and light scolding (ex. He tells another cast member not to use curse words and to strive to be what their parents and family would want to see on the TV screen when it airs). He also gets some things right. One of the women does in fact scream and make random high pitched noises way too often, and many times in response to absolutely nothing except whatever she's imagined. She was very annoying for about half of the show before she calmed down. But Eubank is a known eccentric and has been voted the 2nd most eccentric personality in the UK behind.....Bjork. So that should tell you what to expect.
Blah blah blah...anyway, this is a very entertaining show and I don't think it was mean spirited or geared at targeting one particular cast member over another. The point was to bring together some very different personalities into a difficult situation and egg them on a little now and then. I'm not really a fan of reality TV, but this kept me hooked. One last thing about Eubank is that I wouldn't be surprised if he's suffering from early CTE of some kind given that he fought upwards of 40 professional boxing matches and won a ton of them by way of 10 and 12 round split and unanimous decisions. So he's taken a beating over the years and unfortunately may be paying the price at this point in his life. Sadly, he also lost a son in tragic fashion within the past 3 years, so like some of the other cast members, he has scars and has retreated into a contrived external personality rather than dealing with them through counseling. I was shocked at the shape of Gazza too. The man has lived a hard life (by his own addictions and choices) and it shows. He's 56 years old and looks 70, but he seems reasonably self aware and in some cases self deprecating.
All in all, worth a watch if you're bored or happen to like any of the stars in the cast. It was certainly something different.
Anyway to address the point raised by another user review, while Eubank may be an "introvert", that isn't why he didn't last and it certainly wasn't the case that he was being "baited" to do something violent. The show has an on-camera psychiatrist who comments along with the host and anything rising to the level of baiting, by the rest of the cast or the show runners, would have resulted in action on his part. The truth of the matter is that Eubank is a highly eccentric, very poorly understood individual who is a highly sensitive person and used to being the leader or "alpha" in his social interactions. Don't get me wrong, he's not a violent or bullying alpha, but more of a person who you can tell is used to people humoring (or actually taking to heart) his often meaningless ramblings and light scolding (ex. He tells another cast member not to use curse words and to strive to be what their parents and family would want to see on the TV screen when it airs). He also gets some things right. One of the women does in fact scream and make random high pitched noises way too often, and many times in response to absolutely nothing except whatever she's imagined. She was very annoying for about half of the show before she calmed down. But Eubank is a known eccentric and has been voted the 2nd most eccentric personality in the UK behind.....Bjork. So that should tell you what to expect.
Blah blah blah...anyway, this is a very entertaining show and I don't think it was mean spirited or geared at targeting one particular cast member over another. The point was to bring together some very different personalities into a difficult situation and egg them on a little now and then. I'm not really a fan of reality TV, but this kept me hooked. One last thing about Eubank is that I wouldn't be surprised if he's suffering from early CTE of some kind given that he fought upwards of 40 professional boxing matches and won a ton of them by way of 10 and 12 round split and unanimous decisions. So he's taken a beating over the years and unfortunately may be paying the price at this point in his life. Sadly, he also lost a son in tragic fashion within the past 3 years, so like some of the other cast members, he has scars and has retreated into a contrived external personality rather than dealing with them through counseling. I was shocked at the shape of Gazza too. The man has lived a hard life (by his own addictions and choices) and it shows. He's 56 years old and looks 70, but he seems reasonably self aware and in some cases self deprecating.
All in all, worth a watch if you're bored or happen to like any of the stars in the cast. It was certainly something different.
