Stream It Or Skip It?

In Outlast, 16 people are dropped on Chichagof Island by the Neka River, a remote section of Alaska just west of Juneau. It’s the middle of autumn. All of these people, most of whom have some sort of experience hunting, fishing and otherwise living outdoors, all consider themselves “lone wolf” types who’d rather work alone. But to get the $1 million prize available to those who survive to the end of the contest’s 45 days, these supposed “lone wolves” will need to work in teams. That is basically the only rule. No one will be voted off; the only way to get out of this valley will be to fire off a flare.

OUTLAST: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Throughout history, humans have existed in groups,” a voice says as we see sweeping scenes of the Alaskan wilderness.

The Gist: After an airdrop is made with the instructions and some supplies, the group — all of whom have just met each other — are told to break up in four teams of four members each. Each team is given a designated area to find a campsite. The first night is all about finding a relatively flat spot near fresh water, set up a shelter and get a fire going to help the survivalists stave off the below-freezing cold after the sun goes down.

Some of the groups get their acts together, find suitable sites and set up a good shelter, complete with fire. Others aren’t so lucky. The region is considered a rainforest, so finding dry kindle and fuel is nearly impossible; the groups that start fires use dry cotton from the first aid kit for kindle.

After the first night, where the sound of brown bears were close by, all the groups go out in search of clean water to drink. Some even find food. But one contestant gets sick and decides whether to continue or not.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It’s Alone mixed with Survivor in the Alaskan wilderness, albeit with the caveat that the contestants need to work together.

Our Take: Two things we noticed right away about Outlast: 1) there’s no host, just a narrator filling in details between scenes, and 2) the only person of color in the entire group of 16 contestants was Javier Colon, who took the leadership reins of his team right away, much to the annoyance of the other three members.

It’s a pretty serious show; while there will be challenges, it’s really trying to proceed more like a docuseries and less like a reality show. It’s helpful that most of the contestants have some sort of survivalist or outdoors experience, whether they were in the military, are hunters/fishermen, or otherwise spent time foraging and surviving outside alone. There are a few wild cards, like one person who learned outdoors survival skills via survivalist series on TV, and another contestant who was a heroin addict and knows how shitty people can be to one another.

The first episode moves quickly, given that all the teams are doing is the basics of what they need to survive. That’s no easy task in that area of Alaska, and to see these teams fumble around and politely disagree with each other while others are like finely tuned machines was interesting.

We haven’t even gotten to the meat of the competition, as we saw in some of the season highlights at the beginning and end of the episode. The teams can change, and there will be defections as the competition goes along. But then the teams themselves, once they get an idea of where the other teams are, will start to sabotage one another in order to gain an advantage. If things are already tense, we can’t imagine how off the charts that tension will be once the teams start baiting one another.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Shots of the first season, after the narrator mentions that “they haven’t faced one another yet.”

Sleeper Star: We appreciated how Andrea took one for her team and tried a sip of some questionable water, but boy did she pay for it later.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nick, a wrestling coach, says about the team member who left, “You quit one time on me, I know what kind of person you are. This is after a diatribe on the moral failings of quitters.” He can just piss right off, as far as we’re concerned.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Outlast doesn’t try to do any more than show these “lone wolf” outdoorspeople work in teams and survive some pretty rough terrain. And, in this case, that’s all that’s really needed.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.