It’s so hard to take, but I couldn’t look away from Netflix’s survival contest

Outlast
★★★½

There’s not an awful lot that’s new about Netflix’s foray into the reality survival contest stakes. But the genius of Outlast is to package up the best bits of so many other shows into one utterly addictive, if ethically ambiguous, whole.

From Alone comes the setting – the wilderness of the American northwest (Alaska in this case) on the cusp of winter. From Bear Grylls: The Island comes the need to forage for supplies and to work together for survival. From Survivor comes the game-play aspect and double-cross manoeuvres. And from The Hunger Games comes the manipulation of the players by the unseen game masters, the bows and arrows, and the occasional drop of provisions or tasks via tiny parachutes into the wilderness arena.

Jill Ashock is like a real-life Katniss Everdeen, only a whole lot meaner.Credit: Netflix

The 16 contestants are ostensibly “lone wolf” survivalists. Clearly, though, some aren’t all that well-trained in this sort of stuff, and some are more socially minded than others.

It all starts as they come together in a clearing in the middle of the wilderness where they will spend as long as it takes, and quickly (and seemingly randomly) sort themselves into four teams, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta. They can swap out, so long as they’re accepted by their new cohort, and they can tap out when they’ve had enough. The winner(s) will take home $1 million.

Where it all gets messy – and it really, really does – is in the rules of combat. While most do the right thing, one team takes the approach that there are no rules. It’s the wilderness, who needs them? More to the point, who’s going to enforce them anyway?

So it is that Amber Asay (introduced variously as a yoga instructor and a former heroin addict and felon), Jill Ashock (private investigator and one of the most cut-throat competitors you will ever see) and Justin Court (construction worker) set about stealing the sleeping bags of a couple of rivals – no small thing, given the near-freezing temperatures – and puncturing the inner-tubes of another’s raft (vital for catching the fish and crabs that are among the scant food available).

That’s not competing, it’s cheating, and it’s potentially life-threatening. And yet, the game goes on.

What makes this so hard to take – for fair-play-minded me, at any rate – is that nowhere does the show make it clear this sort of behaviour is acceptable. And if there really are no limits, how long will it be until someone goes the full Katniss and turns that bow and arrow on their rivals rather than the deer? I know I’d have been tempted.

Gimme shelter: Contestants have to band together in teams, and build places to keep out the elements, with only basic materials.Credit: Netflix

It’s not even clear how the prize works. Is it $1 million split between however many make it to the end? Or $1 million each? If it’s the former (which seems likely), doesn’t that incentivise culling your team to the smallest possible number, especially since you have to finish AS A TEAM to claim the prize?

In jamming so much in, executive producers Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) and Grant Kahler (Alone, Castaways) have left so much out. Credit where it’s due, though: the ingredients they have used are brilliantly chosen.

I’m not sure that I like it, but I couldn’t stop watching.

Outlast is streaming on Netflix from March 10.

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