Apocalypse review – the stupidity of these people will make you scream yourself hoarse
This ‘radical social experiment’, in which 14 strangers have to see if they could survive the end times, will make you fear for the future of both TV and humanity
I have always assumed that my main use in the event of an apocalypse would be as protein. Ideally, I’d have a few weeks of peace first, eating whatever was in my now defunct fridge and reading a few last books, before tough, athletic, practically skilled survivors found me and chopped me up for parts. I’ve always been aware that I am built for mod cons, not dystopia.
But the new Channel 4 reality show – sorry, “radical social experiment” (give it UP, Channel 4, you’re racing as fast to the bottom as every other broadcaster) – Apocalypse has made me rethink my chances. All I need to do, I now realise, is find an Australian cattle farmer and I’m golden.
To explain: 14 people are split into rival camps (East and West). Two teams of seven comprising two or three TV archetypes apiece – each team unaware of the other’s existence – have been plonked in a 1,000-acre abandoned town deep in rural Indiana that is now used only by the US military for urban warfare practice. There they must survive for 28 days and eight episodes using only what they can scavenge or create from what they find. According to the surrounding publicity, the participants received three days’ training for how to do so before they were turned loose. This is not mentioned in the programme itself. Probably because no one would believe it.
For the first hour the teams do almost nothing but stand, sit or lie around, unless you count choosing the two biggest, draughtiest buildings available in which to make their base camps. Can they rebuild society from scratch, asks the voiceover. To which the short and honest answer from the available evidence is – no, mate.
At least 13 of them seem to be pretty useless. Two of the women in the West team are immediately at each other’s throats, alternately scoffing and raging about “setting boundaries” and being “disrespected” instead of “gathering firewood” or “finding tins”. The next day, a pair of Westerners find the town’s massive supermarket. But it’s boarded up. Oh well. They go back to base, where the emergent leader – Welsh sheep farmer Ioan – suggests they tidy up the place rather than go back to the big building that likely contains plentiful supplies of food and other vital items and see if they can break in. For absolutely unfathomable reasons, the famished team complies.
In the East, content creator Steven is insisting that nobody so much as scratches their arse without a collective decision to do so. Psychologist Kiera (“I’m a bit of a princess. I own it”) lets Steven go to the toilet before her to do a poo, which is among the top three stupidest things you can do even with modern plumbing – and these guys have a bucket. “We’re fucked on quite a few fronts,” says theatre director Bertie, not inaccurately. Bertie cries a lot, which is heart-rending but not an awful lot of use.
The only thing that is a bit of use involves Scott, the aforementioned Australian cattle farmer. When Steven insists that their first move should be foraging in the forest, Scott calls him “as much use as tits on a bull” and heads off to raid buildings, taking Bertie – who is enjoying a brief dry-eyed period – with him. They find the supermarket, break in and return with food while the foragers are still peering at berries and trying to decide which ones look most like a McDonald’s. Scott institutes immediate rationing of the food (“I want rice!” “No”) until they all decide – I don’t know … that the Spam tins are like the magic porridge pot in the fairytale? That the emptied supermarket will be refilled by producers overnight? – and demolish most of it. They leave just enough for the Westerners to swing by the next day and steal it, because the two people left to guard it do not guard it.
The stupidity that dominates the opening episodes is deeply boring. You can only scream for so long before you give up, especially as you know they are not in any true danger of starving to death. Things get more interesting by the third episode (only three were available for review) as a group’s engineer starts cobbling helpful machines together from the junkyard, someone finds a hunting rifle and Nigerian-born politician Celia turns out to be God’s forthright gift to television (“Men think with their dicks. Women think with their brains. So do not ever think men are making the best decisions.”)
But, fundamentally, the venality and impenetrable individualism that mean no one is willing to concede to an expert, prioritise sensibly or follow orders, and which thus hamper every endeavour, is depressing. I fear for the future – of programming mostly but, sure, humanity too.
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