{"id":539581,"date":"2026-03-23T01:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T01:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/539581\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T01:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T01:33:08","slug":"the-hunt-prey-vs-predator-review-this-hugely-fun-reality-show-is-like-the-traitors-meets-the-hunger-games-reality-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/539581\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hunt: Prey vs Predator review \u2013 this hugely fun reality show is like The Traitors meets The Hunger Games | Reality TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can only assume that the brilliant minds who were locked in a vault at Channel 4 and commanded to come up with a rival to The Traitors came of age during peak Suzanne Collins<\/a> fever. The new reality-competition show The Hunt: Prey vs Predator is indebted to The Hunger Games \u2013 battle takes place in an arena set in a 100-acre wood (Pooh could never) and the contenders charge off from podiums in the middle of it when a klaxon sounds. I would love to know how furiously they argued for a lethal element (\u201cCome on, one longbow! Just one!\u201d), but for now at least we remain in the realm of cash prizes only. The pot is \u00a3100,000. What do the 10 players have to do to secure it?<\/p>\n

First, they must divide themselves into two teams: predators and prey. Why would you want to be prey? Because the hunted get to take part in challenges scattered across the arena that will win them shares in the prize pot, which they will get to keep \u2013 unless a predator captures them. If that happens, the money is passed over and the roles swap: the hunted becomes the hunter. And on the swapsies go over nine weeks, with the prey voting one predator out each time.<\/p>\n

The Traitors-esque element emerges as the groups form alliances, make mini-pacts and form true \u2013 or not \u2013 friendships. Then they duly break pacts, destroy alliances and do whatever else it takes to survive another week and take home money to District 13<\/a>. Sorry, I may have crossed streams there.<\/p>\n

Of course, they divide for the viewers at home into heroes, villains, alphas and underdogs, those you love to hate, those you hate to love, those you simply love and those you simply hate. They move among these roles almost as quickly as they do between predators and prey. It\u2019s great fun.<\/p>\n

Take Nathan, for example, a cheery 33-year-old father of six and grandfather of one, who is the first to propose a pact and the first to break it. But his private interview, away from the rest of the contestants, reveals that he has recently had a serious medical diagnosis, so our sympathies must recalibrate accordingly. Although, to be honest, his childlike inability to resist breaking the pact was pretty endearing anyway. \u201cI really want to capture you!\u201d he says, beaming, to one of the people he has promised never to capture, like a five-year-old holding Mummy\u2019s keys over a grate and knowing he really shouldn\u2019t, but \u2026 little monkey.<\/p>\n

The situation regarding 28-year-old Ameer, a Welsh language campaigner, appears to be more straightforward. He is prey, paired with a 70-year-old retired model, Shelley, to do the two-person challenge and clearly not happy about it. The klaxon sounds and she doesn\u2019t see him for dust. \u201cHe pissed off,\u201d she says later. \u201cI was in survival mode,\u201d he claims. So far, we love to hate, but may move on to just-hate quite soon.<\/p>\n

Chloe, a 27-year-old logistics coordinator, will remain a hero for ever to all of us who felt her initial question \u2013 \u201cDo I have time for a nervous poo?\u201d \u2013 deep in our, well, let\u2019s say bones. In much the same way, my heart belongs to the 50-year-old forester Roy for ending a breakfast discussion over the right way to pronounce \u201cscone\u201d with words as authoritatively brief as they were heartfelt and correct: \u201cIt\u2019s \u2018skon\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike many recent tries (foremost among them Destination X<\/a>, which was The Traitors on a bus), The Hunt has the potential to go some of the distance, if not perhaps the whole way. Presumably aware of the fact that most people\u2019s least favourite part of The Traitors is the missions, it doesn\u2019t let the challenges arrest the momentum of the show or get in the way of the personal stuff. The rules are well worked out, but not overcomplicated, and they keep the narrative twisting nicely. Also, there is a good spread of ages and backgrounds to the manageably sized cast without any of it feeling like a box-ticking exercise.<\/p>\n

The first two episodes left me feeling pleased, incensed, smug, indignant, baffled by people\u2019s stupidity and soothed by their sweetness. All, in short, is as it should be in a reality competition.<\/p>\n

The Hunt: Prey vs Predator is on Channel 4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I can only assume that the brilliant minds who were locked in a vault at Channel 4 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-539581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}