TVNZ+’s gripping new survival show pushes its contestants to their limits, simply by leaving them alone in the bush for as long as possible. 

What’s all this then?

Alone: Australia is the Australian version of the popular Alone reality survival series, which follows 10 outdoor experts as they try to live in the wilderness with limited equipment. It’s a simple premise: the contestant who survives the longest wins $250,000, but there’s no time limit in this game. Alone could run for five days or five months, depending on how well the contestants can survive in an isolated and unforgiving natural environment.    

Previous Alone seasons have been filmed in remote locations around the world, including Patagonia, Northern Mongolia and Saskatchewan. The Australian season takes place on the west coast of Tasmania, where it rains for 245 days of the year and where there are real-life Tasmanian Devils waiting to break your bones with a single bite. Good luck to one and all. 

What’s good?

Alone: Australia is a survival show without any gimmicks or silly rudey-nudey complications. Contestants are dropped off at remote points throughout the Tasmanian bush, and given basic survival gear, an emergency phone and ten survival items of their own choosing. From this point on, the survivalists must fend for themselves in every way, building shelter and finding food and water, and essentially not dying for as long as they possibly can. 

The only person they can rely on is themselves, and some of the Australian contestants seem more prepared – and more confident – than others. All 10 have experience in the outdoors, but each has a different strategy on what element to focus on first (food, fire or shelter), and it’s clear the challenges begin the moment they step foot on the riverbank. 

There’s 52-year-old Gina, a “rewilding facilitator” who deliberately put on 19kgs before she came to the bush, in the hope that the extra weight will give her energy for longer. While she spends the first few hours dancing barefoot on soggy Tasmanian moss, Gina is no fool. She starts a fire using her cotton T-shirt, which is the sort of hectic shit you never see on Naked, Alone and Racing to Get Home.

Then there’s solo adventurist Mike, who reckons this will be both the best and worst thing he ever does, while Army veteran Chris knows that mental toughness will be the key to winning.  He dances with danger on day one by drinking water straight from a stream, without boiling it first. It’s a risky move, because Alone is lost and won on basic mistakes. Getting sick means you leave the game, letting your fire go out means you can’t boil water, and building a poor shelter puts you at risk of hypothermia. Danger is everywhere. This is the worst camping trip ever. 

It doesn’t take long for the realities of the bush to take hold, and after the first cold, wet night, two survivalists are already struggling. Rob, who feels a deep connection to the land and gave a mihi in te reo Māori on arrival, feels isolated and homesick. Beck loses her fire-starter twice, despite keeping it in her bra, and becomes overwhelmed when she realises she’s put her shelter up near a Tasmanian Devil nest. Fair enough. Even the thought of the cartoon Tasmanian Devil freaks me out. 

Alone pushes people to the limits simply by stripping everything away, and as each day passes, the survivalists’ physical and mental limits will be tested more and more. But the best thing about Alone: Australia is despite almost nothing happening, it’s still hugely compelling telly. Life is reduced to watching branches fall from a tree or a pot of water boiling, and success is measured in the simplest of terms, like a gumboot catching rainwater to drink (now that’s a shoey). 

As the contestants’ world slows down and becomes more focused on the essentials of life, so does ours. With nobody else to talk to, the camera becomes the survivalists’ confidant and companion, and thanks to each person lugging 70kg of camera gear through the bush (they self-record nearly all the footage in the show), we get to experience every sleepless night, damp pair of socks and Tasmanian Devil sighting along the way.

Verdict

Watch it. There’s nothing cynical or manufactured about Alone: Australia, which is what makes the show so absorbing, and the simplicity of the format is a refreshing change in a TV landscape filled with contrived survival shows. There’s no villains here, only a bunch of lonely, damp heroes hoping to make it through the night without being killed by a venomous snake or falling branch. That’s not too much to ask, is it? 

Alone: Australia streams on TVNZ+, while seasons of Alone stream on both TVNZ+ and Netflix.