I have no shame confessing that I\u2019d be a crap companion during the apocalypse. My practical skills are limited, I\u2019d be a right Debbie Downer and I don\u2019t respond well to sharing food. Still, last November, two survival experts spent a morning making a valiant effort to prepare me for Armageddon deep in the rural Indiana countryside.<\/p>\n
I had ventured to the US midwest to see the making of Apocalypse, an ambitious new Channel 4 reality series: an eight-parter following 16 people attempting to sustain themselves after an unexplained catastrophe from which only they appear to have survived.<\/p>\n
I was to experience the abridged version: my training only lasted a\u00a0couple of hours, whereas the real participants will get three days of prep. They\u2019ll then have to endure a month in the doomsday simulation. I only had to muddle on until dinnertime.<\/p>\n
After an hour spent in a gravel-pit junkyard, I could (theoretically) build a shower and make a torch with scavenged items. I\u2019d learned how to open a\u00a0tin of pilchards sans can opener (thwack it on concrete) and to\u00a0start a fire without a lighter or matches (twigs, maybe?). Induction over, I was blindfolded and bundled into a minivan. We stopped, and I was\u00a0shoved out, just as the show\u2019s participants would be. As I peeled off my mask, I saw for the first time the extraordinary location in which Apocalypse is set: a thousand-acre abandoned town comprising hundreds of individual buildings.<\/p>\n
double quotation markIn a state of mild peril \u2026 I walked for miles \u2026 like I\u2019d been dropped inside a video game, only without instructions<\/p>\n
The fictional town of Riverside wasn\u2019t built from scratch for the show. The production took over Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, about 70 miles west of Cincinnati, a site usually used by police and military groups to train in urban warfare.<\/p>\n
There were no Big Brother-style CCTV cameras on set; kitting out the\u00a0vast site would be impossible. Instead, a small team of producer-directors would live among Riverside\u2019s residents, documenting every moment.<\/p>\n
Out there in Riverside on my own, in\u00a0a state of mild peril, I started to explore. I walked past burnt-out vehicles and the remnants of a tanning salon; a multistorey car park and a\u00a0smashed-up cop car. The Riverside Memorial High School building looked as if it had been ransacked. In every corner of every room in the hospital, I\u00a0found meticulous attention to detail: IV drips, dusty bedpans, even a game of Twister left on its otherwise looted gift-shop shelves.<\/p>\n
Series producer Jake Smith was tasked with turning the training centre into a live-in stage. \u201cI had to imagine what people might actually do in there,\u201d he said, \u201cstart plotting out imaginary storylines: if they found this, what could they do?\u201d He\u00a0watched \u201cgrim\u201d survival shows on\u00a0YouTube and took inspiration from\u00a0prepper content. Yes, scarcity of\u00a0life\u2019s essentials would see contestants struggle for our titillation, \u201cbut I also want there to be comedy and joy with the dark\u201d.<\/p>\n
Apocalypse contestant Scott looks around Riverside. Photograph: \/Channel 4<\/p>\n
Alongside functional necessities, Smith\u2019s team included some surprises. A battery-powered candy floss machine was squirrelled away. \u201cIt\u2019s so unexpected in an apocalypse context,\u201d he said, \u201cthat I can envisage a funny scene if they find it.\u201d There was also a disco ball, a dozen Christmas crackers, a record player and one record (Dancing Queen by Abba). Inside the bus station was a broken ATM, next to which Smith sprinkled $200 in cash. \u201cThey may talk about what it\u2019s like to be in a world where money means nothing,\u201d he said, \u201cor how society could function differently.\u201d They might just use the bills as toilet paper.<\/p>\n
Whether or not these potential plot points are discovered \u2013 and what happens if they are \u2013 is beyond Smith\u2019s control. \u201cThat\u2019s what I love about this,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not formatted, like so much TV now. No elimination votes or must-win, set-up challenge.\u201d There\u2019s no prize money either. So much TV today feels \u201crinse and repeat\u201d, he explained. \u201cThe Traitors comes out, then suddenly every network\u2019s trying to do their version.\u201d Granted, survival shows have been on our screens for more than a quarter of a century, \u201cbut a derelict city is a new environment. We\u2019ve built it; now it\u2019s over to them. We will see what they come up with in this \u2018choose your own adventure\u2019 world.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for my own adventure? Let loose around the town, I walked for miles past a railway station (train included), a\u00a0church, a prison, a motel and a lake with cars semi-submerged in water. It\u00a0was like I\u2019d been dropped inside a\u00a0video game, only without instructions. Even the edges of its seemingly limitless playable area only became visible when I rubbed up against them: doors that didn\u2019t open, walls that curved away from me, a row of stacked shipping containers blocking off the horizon.<\/p>\n
Darkness was approaching when the producers rescued me. I\u2019d found no\u00a0water, no source of heat, no tin of pilchards. There\u2019d been talk of me spending the night on site \u2013 I\u2019m not convinced I would have made it through. If I\u2019d been caught on camera, my ineptitude might well have made for compelling watching, but it would have felt somewhat sadistic, too.<\/p>\n
Contestants Steven and Kyra find their way around Riverside. Photograph: Channel 4<\/p>\n
Later I watched in production HQ as the participants entered. A wall of screens beamed back a series of live feeds, which a team monitored day and night. On one wall was a large white sheet split into 28 daily sections and titled \u201cArchitects of the apocalypse\u201d. It\u2019s here that storylines and character arcs would be produced in real time.<\/p>\n
Executive producers Jo Harcourt-Smith and Tim Whitwell spent years trying to get access to the site. With about 85% of the UK\u2019s population living in urban areas, Harcourt-Smith felt that \u201cif shit does hit the fan, it\u2019s\u00a0going to be in towns and cities that\u00a0we all end up having to survive. We wanted to find out what that would be like.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re interested in some of the practicalities and processes,\u201d says Whitwell, \u201cbut it\u2019s all about how you feel when you\u2019re in this situation. We\u2019ve\u00a0created a playground in which ordinary people will experience something extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Months later I found myself mulling over this noble cause as I watched early episodes in which TV archetypes \u2013 blokey chef, heroic Paralympian, Welsh farmer, clueless posh man \u2013 muddle through with the content creators. The participants fail and succeed, fight and bond, cry and laugh. They go to the loo in buckets.<\/p>\n
double quotation markIn an era when reality TV ethics are being scrutinised, how can viewer pleasure be squared with participant discomfort?<\/p>\n
The series is firmly in the \u201cfactual-entertainment\u201d reality television genre, in which human stories and emotions are evoked for the viewer\u2019s enjoyment. It\u2019s in the canon alongside The Island with Bear Grylls<\/a> (Whitwell was an executive producer), ITV\u2019s Survivor<\/a> from 2001-2 and early iterations of <\/a>Shipwrecked<\/a>.<\/p>\n But in an era when the ethics of\u00a0reality television are being increasingly scrutinised, how can viewer pleasure be squared with participant discomfort? What differentiates a worthwhile endeavour from a circus of manipulation?<\/p>\n Su Holmes, a University of East Anglia professor and TV historian, tells me this tension has always been present, even in the earliest days of \u201cfact-ent\u201d. She points to prank show Candid Camera, which aired in the US\u00a0in 1948, and the American quiz show<\/a> scandals of the 1950s<\/a> in which rigged outcomes and scripted performances caused national outrage. \u201cQuestions always arise when\u00a0\u2018ordinary\u2019 people are put in a\u00a0constructed reality,\u201d she says. \u201cHow much is manufactured \u2013 real emotion versus performance? Where is the tipping point into exploitation?\u201d<\/p>\n Contestants Kyra, Louise and Steven in \u2018Riverside\u2019 AKA Muscatatuck Urban Training Center. Photograph: Channel 4<\/p>\n In the early days of reality TV, cast members had little concept of what it\u00a0meant to be televised. Now contributors enter these environments eyes open. Few believe they\u2019ll become overnight celebrities, and most understand the basic concept of an edit. A genuine interest in a money-can\u2019t-buy experience remains a pull, as does the prospect of leveraging the exposure. Every Apocalypse participant I speak to after filming gushes about their time in Riverside.<\/p>\n \u201cIt totally changed my perspective,\u201d TikToker Steven Mckell tells me. \u201cThere, finding a bag of rice was the\u00a0greatest feeling \u2013 it makes you appreciate the small things. I learned to be more in the moment, to let my guard down.\u201d Cabbie Brooke McCreaner shares a similar sentiment. \u201cI\u2019ve been through the trenches. I\u2019ve had some struggles. To be stripped of everything? It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I would go back in a\u00a0heartbeat,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Promotional material for Apocalypse bills\u00a0it as \u201ca bold and ambitious social experiment\u201d. Broadcasters such as Channel 4 and the BBC have always framed fact-ent in lofty terms, Holmes believes, to justify the shows in their public service remit. \u201cLook at the early 2000s adverts for Big\u00a0Brother,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not \u2018Come gawp at these people\u2019 \u2013 it was framed as a social experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s not a criticism, she is quick to add. Holmes is a reality TV super-fan. She argues that \u201cthese shows can be exploitative and commercialised and raise important questions, explore complex themes and expose ideas about society like nothing else can\u201d.<\/p>\n Back in Muscatatuck, as soon as the show\u2019s participants-slash-human guinea pigs were let loose, I couldn\u2019t tear my eyes away from the action. I\u00a0wanted to see them succeed but also to witness their strains and blunders, how they coped with exhaustion and hunger; that first moment when they clocked that across the endless acres there wasn\u2019t a single flushing loo.<\/p>\n Prying on pressured human emotions may for ever be ethically dubious. That doesn\u2019t make it any less\u00a0engrossing. Fact-ent shows get greenlit because we keep watching them. And while that\u2019s the case, I\u2019d prefer to tune into shows that at least attempt to make my voyeurism feel vaguely worthwhile.<\/p>\n Apocalypse starts on Channel 4, 13 September,\u00a09pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have no shame confessing that I\u2019d be a crap companion during the apocalypse. 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