Gritty and real.
Did you ever watch PBS and BBC's House series? Where they took modern people and had them live like they were back in time? There was Frontier House, where people had to build their own homes and fields like they would have in the 1860s on the edge of America, and there was 1940s House, where families had to live under rationing and the Blitz in London, and there was Manor House, where families had to adjust to no fresh food and living with servants. There were others, too, and it was a lovely series that would do well to return, but until then, we have The Colony-- it's like they took the House Series idea and pushed it forward. The premise: There's been a massive plague that's killed off most of the human population, and these ten survivors, all strangers, have to try to start rebuilding from scratch, using only what they know about the world and what they can find in the warehouse they've chosen as their home and the areas around it. There is very little to eat, the water has to be filtered because the main source is the poisonous and sludgy Los Angeles River, which is hardly even a river anymore, so much as it's a chemical runoff ditch for the whole city. These people don't know each other until they're in the same place at the same time, and they all have pasts that may help or hinder: A fifty-something Computer Engineer with glasses, A young doctor, A perky emergency room nurse, an aeronautics engineer who hasn't done much actual engineering since school, a contractor that spent six years in the state pen for trafficking and doesn't like being locked up again, a nearly illiterate handyman who can apparently build anything out of scraps but has terrible anger and trust issues, a marine biologist who looks like she's in way over her head, a personal trainer, a machinist who we haven't seen much of yet, and a Mechanical Engineer who served in the army during unnamed rough times. They've all got skills that they can use to help, but most of them have never had to use them for survival and in these first days after the collapse of everything, some of them are still too scared and shell-shocked to think of how they need to be used.
When the show started, they were kept awake for thirty hours and given very little food and water to get them started on being tough and hungry and somehow still alive after the plague. They were given the chance to loot as much as they could carry from an abandoned department store that was already pretty well picked over, which got them some clothes and some food, a shopping cart, some bedding, basic things like that-- and then they were attacked by marauders, a rival gang of survivors who have supposedly been at it longer and have a more belligerent view of how to go about living: the classic post-apocalyptic biker gangs, who were given instructions not to harm the survivors, but the survivors don't know that, and no one has specified what counts as 'harm'-- can they push the survivors around? Push them over? Hit them? They can definitely attack in the night and try to get into Sanctuary-- their warehouse-- and can cause trouble and resistance for raiding parties that venture out for supplies. Which is just what they do in the second episode.
Only two have aired so far (new ones are every Tuesday at 10 on Discovery Channel, and they're linked through Hulu to the main website where they can be watched online), and they've managed to collect and filter water, and store it for later, they've organized a pantry and a way to keep track of how much they have and how long it will last, they've built a communal bed for safety and set up a night watch system so they're always guarded, and the engineers managed to daisy-chain twenty car batteries into an electrical system that gives them light to work by at night-- and an ingenious wood-gas system that lets them recharge the batteries with an old lawn mower engine. They've accomplished one raid, where they got a little fresh veg and a baby goat and it's milk-giving mother, some more clothes, and some various pieces of stuff that might be useful later, but they took these things from some rival survivors, who now know they exist. They've found an old cargo truck in the yard, and they've decided to refit it as their main transport, a way to find a whole new place if this one stops supporting them or gets too dangerous. They've figured out how to flush the toilets without any running water to avoid disease. They're trying to figure out how to work together.
This is a ten week project, and their mission is to rise above hand-to-mouth survival and start a society. To thrive. And it's got an amazing range of things and topics and ideas to explore. For instance: the story is that the world was wiped out by a disease, and there's both a doctor and a nurse on hand, so it would be interesting if they had to encounter that disease at some point-- a sick person looking for shelter, someone with the disease attacking them when they're out foraging, even something like bodies floating down the waterway and further contaminating their water supply. Other ideas it would be interesting to explore:
Whether or not they can grow a garden: among the fresh veggies they found were two perfect heirloom tomatoes and some root veggies-- both of which will grow if they plant them, with the tomatoes being especially exciting because they're open-pollinated, they'll fruit without human help, and they're hugely nutritious. The project is only two and a half months long, which isn't long enough to fruit, but it would be long enough to get flowers and prove it can work, if they're lucky, and they're supposed to be living like this is it, this is all they have. Plus, with the goats able to eat just about any old scraps and turn it into milk and manure, they've got the fertilizer for a garden right there.
How much of the modern world will they try to reconstruct: The previews show them trying to build solar panels, and that's an excellent idea, but will they be able to do more than just light the warehouse and power their tools? Can they build an oven, or a furnace, or a water heater? Will they try to make the warehouse look like the homes they left behind, or will they strike out in new directions? And psychologically, what happens when things get similar enough to how they were that they realize how bad things really are? The doctor has already been trying to repair their shoes; will they keep wearing things like shoes and bras and full-coverage clothes, or will they go all Tom-Hanks-in-Castaway and start looking more like cavemen? Already, the old men-vs-women jobs have started cropping up, and it's looking a little like old-school chauvinism; will the women put up with that? Will the dichotomy continue, or will they find a more modern, central position to build their new society on?
How will modern sensibilities survive: They've already raided once and stolen supplies from other survivors, and they've already met with the men who would like to take what they have, too; some of them are uncomfortable with stealing, while others seem to be fine, and at least one seems to be veering into a sort of hoarding mentality. How will people who have been taught all their lives not to steal come out at the other end, and will they have trouble readjusting to the normal world when the project is done? Will Discovery Channel take responsibility if they all come out shell-shocked and unstable and thiefy?
How seriously will they take the idea of rebuilding society: Will they let in other survivors? Will they try to make friends with the marauders? Will they start pairing off, getting married, having babies? Will they find other farm animals-- if there are two goats, then there's at least one more, and LA used to have chickens, and there's probably dogs and cats around whether they're intended for the project or not. Will they organize hunting parties, farmsteads, a form of government, a church? Will they be nomadic, or will they try to build a town?
It's an awesome idea, and the show is fiercely interesting and entertaining-- and thought provoking. What would any of us do in this situation? What do we, the viewers, have to offer the survival of even a small group of strangers?-- and best of all, if it's successful, maybe they'll do other survival experiments. From here, they could explore nuclear holocaust survival in a winter world, they could look at post-war survival in a destroyed and occupied world, they could address the challenges of colonizing the oceans, the moon, Mars or anywhere else. How many ways could they explore the ways people can restart a destroyed or gone civilization? It would be awesome to see all of them.
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