Seth Lueker, Andrea Hilderbrand, Angie Esparza, and Nick Radner, Outlast
Netflix
Forget the freezing temperatures, empty bellies, and hungry bears roaming the wilderness of Alaska in Netflix’s new survival competition series Outlast. It’s the other humans who are the most dangerous threat.
The debut season of Outlast (out Friday, March 10), a spin on popular reality shows like Alone and Survivor, tightens the vice on its competitors to such an extreme that some begin to turn on each other with a primal fury that puts others at severe risk. It’s a wild social experiment flooded with participants desperate to defeat others, greedy for a million dollar prize, and sucked into a villainous mob mentality. Comparisons to the anarchy of Lord of the Flies are frequently thrown about with these types of shows, but never has it been more appropriate than with Outlast.
We won’t spoil anything here, but even those running the show were shocked by the lengths some competitors went to in order to eliminate others. “Did I think it would go this far? No, of course I didn’t,” executive producer Grant Kahler told TV Guide.
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Outlast is most closely related to one of Kahler’s previous shows, History Channel’s wildly popular Alone, except it blows up the titular conceit of that series by forcing its 16 participating survivalists to team up in groups of four. The players, who weren’t given details on the team aspect beforehand and self-identify as “lone wolves,” must then survive in the frigid wilds of remote Alaska with just a few tools, their desire to win, and their teammates, who were complete strangers just minutes ago. There’s no voting others off; the only way players leave the competition is by self-elimination after giving up, ceremoniously displayed by the firing of a flare gun that lights up the picturesque valley in which the series is held. And the only rule is that in order to win, players must be in a team.
“This is something that I’ve always wanted to do, where you’re really focusing on people’s ability to survive in a group,” Kahler, whose other credits include ABC’s 2018 Castaways, said. “And how does that group dynamic really change the way people behave? You’re constantly battling self preservation versus loyalty to your teammates or to the other players … or does your greed take over, and you just kind of go all-out crazy and do whatever it takes to win? I always thought that was an interesting question: Everyone has that line [to cross], and where is that line?”
That line gets absolutely obliterated at one point in the show, as one team goes to extreme measures to take out others. This isn’t a normal reality TV spat where someone throws a drink in someone’s face and people can cool off in the heated pool. Temperatures are barely above freezing and the rain is relentless, so what happens in the cold, wet Alaskan wilderness has potentially deadly consequences.
Justin Court, Outlast
Netflix
“We knew that as people got more and more tired, more and more hungry, that people’s strategies would start to change,” Kahler said. “I don’t think we really knew to what extent people would go to to try and essentially clear out the game board.”
In addition to building structures, finding water, and foraging for food — which includes anything from mushrooms to squirrels to *gulp* limpets — the smaller team structure means players must watch their backs from multiple angles. Not only do they have to worry about threats from other teams, but individuals have to inspire their teammates not to quit, or, worse, backstab them and defect to a stronger team. On top of that, each team has to weigh the benefits of adding a new team member and making daily survival easier with the downside of splitting the pot with another person and having another mouth to feed.
Ultimately, what makes Outlast work so well as a new entrant to Netflix’s growing number of reality projects is the producers’ commitment to letting things play out, no matter how bad things get, as long as safety is ensured. It creates a scary microcosm of society today, where extremists figure out a way that works for them, even if it means throwing morality and integrity out the window.
“It’s such a difficult situation,” Kahler explained. “You’re so hungry, you’re so cold, you’re so wet the entire time. You’re pulled away from your family. I just can’t emphasize enough how difficult it is, and so, if someone has the ability to end something sooner and potentially win a bunch of money in the process, how they go about that was up to them.”
All eight episodes of Outlast Season 1 premiere Friday, March 10, on Netflix.