Fans of Survivor or Bear Grylls have already received the second season of the cold fight for a million.
Last spring Netflix offered a reality show Outlast. The fight for survival in the Alaskan wilderness was not without its flaws, but it offered an interesting look at the foresters’ skills of the participants and their varying degrees of willingness to do anything to win. And the mechanics of how the competition worked weren’t entirely in vain either. The second season started last week and September 11th Netflix will bring the remaining episodes.
The basic concept remained. 16 contestants are dropped into the Alaskan wilderness. All of them have more or less experience with survival in nature, but mostly they are used to taking care of themselves. Here they are forced to work together. At the beginning, they will be divided into four teams. Whoever is without a team for more than twenty-four hours is eliminated. Players can change teams or decide who they don’t want in their camp. Those who are unable to continue due to health reasons, or who decide to voluntarily give up their efforts, also drop out of the game.
During the game, everyone is simply trying to survive in the wilderness, only from time to time they get the opportunity to get some supplies or tools that the crew makes available to the players. Exceptionally, there is an opportunity to make a tactical decision, or it is possible to sabotage opponents. The goal is simply to last as long as the final exam is announced. Whichever team wins it will split the million dollars equally among its remaining members.
In the episodes shown so far, the second season offered an interesting mix of personalities, where some participants simply cannot help but cheer. For others, it’s interesting to see how they can’t get over some of their character traits (mostly some form of stubbornness) and thus constantly come into conflict with other players. The fight for survival is again interesting for the lay viewer, although after two series one sometimes has a tendency to seriously doubt some individuals whether they have anything to look forward to in such a competition. It probably takes some special art not to start a fire in four people for a whole week.
The second season has a big advantage in that we already know the rules, we know how the competition is structured and there is no need to explain anything and there are no questions hovering over the course. Although some things are still not quite clear. Can teams declare anyone from their center at any time? And what are the rules for sabotage? Obviously, violence is forbidden, but when one team has their equipment stolen by an opponent right in front of their eyes and they can only watch the damage, it feels extremely weird. Production should work on this in the future. All in all, however, Outlast is an interesting survival game that has the potential to provide an interesting spectacle for years to come.
Background and photo: Netflix