to me, one of the most interesting things about the show Alone is its title.
In the show, 10 survivalists are stranded by themselves in the Canadian wilderness. Its edit emphasizes the harsh and unforgiving wilderness. A man enters a homemade boat to cross the lake. In the corner, a caption says the water is 42°F. B-roll lingers on the snow stuck to pine trees, scene transitions show time lapses of puddles freezing and slow-mo of birds taking flight. It is cold, the food is fleeing, and it is only going to get colder.
being produced in the US, its title and cinematic language evoke the particularly American myth of rugged individualism: one person against the elements. a harsher, but less complicated world, where people are alone with their thoughts and their abilities. It is screaming at the audience: you cannot do this. These experts can barely do this. It takes an Exceptional Individual to do this.
Yet, I always find myself daydreaming about how cool it would be if all of the contestants were out there together. How would they delegate tasks? How would they make decisions and resolve conflicts? What kind of shelter would they build? How would they take care of each other when they got sick and weak?
Every episode, a couple of contestants are pulling fish out of the lake left and right, while a couple others starve. One guy this season caught so much fish early on that his food rotted before he could eat it. Others, miles away, survived on pine bark broth and berries. If they were able to work together, neither one of them would have starved. In fact, they could delegate: one person can catch fish for two, while the other builds a shelter for two, rather than each doing all the work alone. It would be so much easier, there wouldn't even be a show.
The central conflict of Alone is not Man vs. Nature. Not even Man vs. Self. It's like, Man vs. Alone-ness. So many contestants tap out just because they miss their families. Many others expend all their energy building a shelter and never catch any food, or spend so much time catching food that they get left in the cold when winter hits. All that goes away with just a couple other people out there with you.
It is marvelous, actually, just how much we are built to survive, and more than that, built to help each other survive.
