SBS has commissioned an Australian version of the cult hit survival show Alone, with filming set to begin mid-year ahead of an early 2023 air date.
The commission was revealed as part of the broadcaster’s belated upfront presentation on Monday, in which it unveiled its programming line-up for 2022.
An Australian version of Alone, in which contestants strive to survive in the wilderness as long as possible, is coming to SBS in 2023. Credit:SBS
Although Alone: Australia won’t air until next year it will have fans of the American show and its Scandinavian spin-offs – there have been editions in Norway, Sweden and Denmark – salivating.
“This show has been a juggernaut for SBS,” said Chris Irvine, acting director of television and online content at SBS.
Alone screens on Viceland, but it’s in the streaming space where it really has its devotees. Over the seven seasons and 84 episodes of the US show that have so far aired here (season 8 will screen this year), SBS claims it has racked up more than 30 million “chapter” views (a chapter being a slice between ad breaks). That works out to around 357,000 views per episode.
“It is quite simply the most successful factual show ever on our platform, and second only to The Handmaid’s Tale in terms of its overall performance,” Mr Irvine said. “There’s a really great reason for that: it’s amazing television.”
The show’s premise is simple: a bunch of contestants (typically 10) are dropped on their own in a remote wilderness area with just a handful of items of their choosing (sleeping bag, tarp, handsaw, and some sort of cooking vessel among them) and left to fend for themselves. They carry and operate their own cameras and lights too.
Whoever lasts the longest wins. In the US series, that comes with a prize of $500,000. In the Scandinavian versions, it comes merely with bragging rights.
“The instinct to survive is such a fundamental part of humanity, it applies to every one of us, that it gets you immediately invested in the struggle,” said Mr Irvine. “It’s not necessarily about dealing with predators or the extreme environment, it’s about what happens to social creatures when they’re isolated. I wonder whether that’s why it made such compelling viewing during the COVID lockdowns.”
ITV Studios will make the Australian version, which will be filmed during winter. No location has yet been revealed, but if past iterations are any indication it is likely to require somewhere cold and wet.
Also on the slate for next year are several other documentary series that are just as likely to grab headlines, as they are viewers.
Jess Hill will present Yes, No, Maybe, a three-part documentary series on consent.Credit:SBS
Following the success of her series on domestic violence, Look What You Made Me Do, Jess Hill will return with a three-part series on consent. Yes, No, Maybe, which will air towards the end of the year, “is going to provoke uncomfortable but vital discussions for Australia”, Mr Irvine predicted, and was especially relevant given the cases that have been raised and the debates that have raged around the issue in the past year or so.
Indigenous filmmaker Rachel Perkins will front the series The Australian Wars, which promises to lift the lid on a history of conflict between First Nations peoples and colonial settlers. Produced by the award-winning Blackfella Films (First Contact, First Australians, Redfern Now, Total Control), the series is likely to spark debate, and invite attack from conservative voices.
“This is not opinion, these are matters of historical record,” Mr Irvine said. “The team has spent a long time researching it and I think they will stand by it, as will SBS.”
Rachel Perkins tackles the frontier wars.Credit:SBS
Coming in March is Life on the Outside, another in the long line of challenging social-experiment docuseries with which the broadcaster has carved a niche. Wentworth star Danielle Cormack presents this three-parter in which former prisoners are placed with families for the first 100 days after their exit from prison, in a bid to tackle the issue of recidivism, which sees half of all former inmates returning to jail within two years.
On the drama front, Imogen Banks – co-creator of Offspring, Tangle and Puberty Blues – brings to the screen Safe Home, an adaptation of Anna Barnes’ play Lethal Indifference, a thriller set inside a family violence legal centre. There’s also True Colours, the first co-commission from SBS and NITV. A murder mystery set against the backdrop of the Aboriginal art scene, the series features extensive use of Arrernte dialogue.
“It’s a statement of intent,” Mr Irvine said of the fact the two broadcasters have worked so closely together.
“It dives into worlds that are quintessentially Australian but that I certainly haven’t seen on television before. ”
The fifth season of The Handmaid’s Tale spearheads the international drama offering, bolstered by a third season of War of the Worlds, a free-to-air debut for Amazon Prime Video’s Nine Perfect Strangers, and Michael Mann’s latest spin on his Miami Vice formula, Tokyo Vice.
It will be a massive year for sport too, with SBS having regained the right to screen all games in the FIFA World Cup, which this year will see some games kicking off at the work-friendly time of 9pm or so (though we’ll have to wait until the end of the year to see them).
The network will also screen the first-ever Women’s Tour de France as part of its extensive line-up of cycling coverage.
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Alone Australia: SBS commissions local version of cult-hit survival show - Sydney Morning Herald
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