“I don’t get it.” – Josh (Tom Hanks), Big
During the opening moments of The Colony’s premiere, in which the second season is teased with tense and rousing classical strings arrangement as accompaniment, I started to ask myself: why?
Then we’re told:
“The Colony is a controlled experiment to see how far a group of strangers will push themselves to rebuild after a global catastrophe.”
I then repeated to myself: okay, but why?
You have to understand that when a show opens with a montage filled with an explanation of what’s ahead interspersed with “scary” words like GLOBAL CATASTROPHE and ENVIRONMENTAL DANGER, my manipulative and contrived reality show radar (you know, the MACRSR) displays a solid ping. The show also happens to take place on the Gulf Coast, in Chalmette, LA, to (literally) take advantage of the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina. So I’m sure it had to titillate the show’s producer to no end that there’s a happy accident at play because of this summer’s horrific gulf oil spill.
The “colonists” begin by spending 72 hours in solo isolation, after which they are dropped off via helicopter into a “safe zone,” where there are no further instructions on what the cast should do next. All they know is that there’s been a global outbreak of the “spooky”-sounding Nuclear Flu. The gang stumbles around an abandoned-looking set that includes buildings wrecked by Katrina and finds props placed by producers for basic survival needs.
Because we’re on an artificial reality show schedule, the colonists need some conflict and things to interact with aside from basic survival activities. That comes in the form of actors dressed as ratty-looking survivalist types on Day 2, who come into The Colony looking for food and water. I found myself wondering (hoping?) what would happen if everyone started beating on each other for real, and sure enough, an actual scuffle started to erupt, but it swiftly deteriorated into awkward this-is-probably-not-cool-because-none-of-this-is-really-real mode. Actors traipsing around form the greatest “threat” to the colonists as it turns out, as they are looking to pilfer stuff. Also, one of the “rules” is that contact with outsiders forces the colonists to spend 12 hours in isolation, so as not to spread around the Nuclear Flu.
The episode culminates in a “militia” of actors who “attack” the colonists’ compound with a mission to steal medical supplies. It’s a laughable scene for a few reasons. The militia is armed with pepper spray and smoke grenades, which they use to some small effect, but then essentially try to roughshod their way into the colonists’ shelter. There’s a bizarre sense that no one really knows how far they are allowed to go or should go, but there’s a lot of weird scuffling and half-wrestling that goes on before the militia stalks off with the supplies.
Gospel-type music plays at the end while the colonists look at each other in disbelief that their supplies have been stolen.
More thoughts on “New Beginning”:
* The colonists include a cast with self-described designations as Becka Adams, “The Model,” Sian Proctor, “The Geology Professor,” Jim Armistead, “The Carpenter,” Reno Minitrelli, “The Foreman,” Sally Dawson, “The Auto Mechanic / Shop Owner,” George Willis, “The Industrial Artist,” and Robert Deville, “The Retired Contractor.” There was no word on unrepresented professions such as attorney or insurance salesman.
* People such as Adam Montella, “Homeland Security Expert,” pops on every now again with pearls of wisdom about how much it would suck if indeed there was an apocalypse.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.