Eden - Channel 4 Paradise or Reality Nightmare

New programme coming up where human nature emerges with a dark dark side.

At first it seemed like the perfect escape from modern life - beautiful surroundings, forests ripe with game to shoot (among the 23 was a deerstalker called Glen who had a gun), an ocean full of mackerel to be caught, endless space to grow a thriving kitchen garden. They were even going to be given enough dry food to last them 100 days while they established themselves. How bad could it get? Anyone who watched the initial episodes aired last summer, however, saw how quickly the so-called “paradise” descended into something altogether less heavenly.

With 47 cameras rigged up around the camp, the initial plan had been to show the development of the “community” throughout the year. But the producers never could have predicted the dramatic scenes that would play out - fist fights, tantrums, participants getting so drunk on homebrewed moonshine they collapsed, and a regression back to medieval gender roles which lead to over half the women eventually leaving.

Aired tonight at 10pm.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/eden-exposed-channel-4s-experiment-turned-nightmare/

Which begs the question....what happens when societal restraints are stripped away?

“I saw the darkness coming,” says Ali, a junior doctor who was so infuriated by the way men started to control the community that she left last summer. “I was really really struggling in there. I didn’t think it was going to get any better. I saw quite a bleak future for the community.

“When the majority of the women leave, you start to forget what it’s like to be in a balanced group of people,” agrees Josie, who stayed until the end of the experiment.

The cracks began to form early on, when opinions differed on how to ration the dried food they had been given, with some of the men deciding that it should be eked out to last for longer than the 100 days. As they grew weaker on the limited supplies, crucial tasks like building their winter shelter, and fixing a boat for fishing took longer. And so, those members of the camp who had control over the rations began to wield a great deal of power.

But the limited food rations were just the start. At the centre of the chaos was a disturbing male-female divide which ran through camp politics. Six months in, and over half the women had, like Ali, left Eden. In one scene in the new episodes the men discuss passing the women between them for sex, all the while - it seems - systematically making them do the “female” jobs like the cleaning, while they got on with the business of running the camp.

“Us men need to do the manly jobs and the women need to do the women jobs,” says one of the first voices you hear in the opening episode of the new series - that of 34-year-old plumber Titch, who seemed to be the ringleader who were ruling the camp by the end. “At first, we tried to be fair, no sexism etcetera,” he says. “Everyone wants to be in charge, it’s just whether or not they can be.”

Katie, 31, a marine conservationist who managed to stay until the bitter end, said it was almost as if the men “lost their motivation for being kinder, more gentle, more thoughtful” once the women left. “They had no reason to behave themselves. It just became a locker room kind of atmosphere. It escalated and then because no one said no, it got worse and worse.”

Over time, the experiment descended into worrying scenes which saw the remaining women becoming so malnourished many of them found their periods stopped. All amid claims that a ruling group of alpha males planned to starve out the weakest women so that the rest of them could survive the coming winter. Truly, if Cormac McCarthy had thought of it, he would have written the story of Eden.

Lord of the Flies for adults.

I recorded that to watch today, Thank you !

nicko wrote:I recorded that to watch today,          Thank you !

I think it'll be interesting.

HoratioTarr wrote:

But the producers never could have predicted the dramatic scenes that would play out -

 

Sure?
I could have predicted it ... easily!! Whatever the producers claim, they aren't going to spend all that money producing a show and expect no fireworks.  They even ply the participants with xs alcohol to ensure there's fireworks.

So many reality shows have this exact format - they throw a group of volatile people together and turn up their stress levels then sit back and wait for the drama lol.

Jules wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

But the producers never could have predicted the dramatic scenes that would play out -

 

Sure?
I could have predicted it ... easily!!    Whatever the producers claim, they aren't going to spend all that money producing a show and expect no fireworks.  They even ply the participants with xs alcohol to ensure there's fireworks.

So many reality shows have this exact format - they throw a group of volatile people together and turn up their stress levels then sit back and wait for the drama lol.

Well, yeah.