The Colony

Perhaps I am going a little stir crazy here, but I find myself without anything better to do at this moment other then to write on. All of this extra free time has left me wanting to just write and write and so here I go yet again.

Just the other night, while between playing anything on my 360, I browsed through the TV shows. Usually I just watch through a bunch of previews and be done with it. But then I saw something interesting. A new "reality" show called "The Colony" on the Discovery Channel.

The premise is simple: Could a group of 10 people (each of whom have a specialty such as a doctor, engineer) survive after an apocalyptic disaster has left much of the world in ruins? They are first given 15 minutes to raid an abandoned department store for whatever they can carry (mostly they grabbed food). From there they end up setting up their sanctuary in an abandoned warehouse, which was apparently an old factory. Because of this, they have some basic tools at their disposal. But the building has no functioning electricity or running water.

In the episodes we've seen so far, they've built a water filter, a generator out of a power washer and even a shower. Basically they can build whatever they can from whatever they materials they scavenge. And considering they have a few engineers, they have come up with all sorts of stuff.

While having a camera crew does kind of butcher the idea, the show itself has been interesting to me. If for nothing else, it is fun to see what sort of device they manage out of all kinds of random things.

This past episode was particularly interesting because they focused on developing weapons. You see, in the previous episode, their camp was raided (the "marauders" that attack are instructed not to harm anyone. But apparently the "survivors" don't know about that.) and they lost a few days worth of food because of it. Probably the best or at least the most interesting weapon was the flame thrower, which had a hell of a flame to it.

Anyway, it is a fun show to watch and it is interesting to see how they MacGuyver machines and equipment they need.

One thing I do wonder though... where is this show going? And where and how will this controlled experiment end?