The Colony: Sucks

Seriously, I know the Discover Channel has gone downhill...but damn...

This show really, really sucks. I thought no post-apocalyptic teevee show could possibly be worse than Jericho...which was, of course, jaw-droppingly, remote-grabbingly awful...but man, this stinker even gives Jericho a run for its money.

It's really hard to pick out the worst thing about The Colony. Mike of course comes to mind...but he seems to be a plant of some kind. Perhaps he gets paid more to be an asshole. I dunno. But for my money, the very worst part is the pop-up psychologist that occasionally gets superimposed on the action, spewing psychobabble.

My favorite one: after the "survivors" went out and stole food and goats from some other poor survivors, the psychologist comes on and says something like "to survive in this kind of situation, sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do." Now, of course it's all play-acting, and the "theft" of the food wasn't actual theft, and no poor innocent is going to die as a result. But, of course, "doing things you don't want to do" is not the issue here. Rather, the issue is: doing things that are immoral. The question is not: should I do something I don't want to do in order to survive? The question is: should I do something wrong in order to survvie? (Answer: of course not, dumbass.) And I can't think of any plausible view according to which I get to steal the food that you need to survive simply because I also need it to survive. (Unless, e.g., you stole it too, or you are evil, etc.)

But leave it to psychology to try to reduce every rational issue to desires and icky feelings.

Unsurprisingly, the casual observations of the participants are generally more sensible and insightful than those of the psychologist.

The last straw for me, though, may have come with the phony sparring match in which the Colony's 100-lb "martial arts expert" "won" a phony sparring match with a 250-lb, 6' 4", buffed-out interloper (a confederate in the "experiment"). I mean, seriously. This is not the Buffyverse. We'd all like to see the 100 lb girl whip up on the giant dude in hand-to-hand combat. That would be suh-weet! ...Unfortunately, anyone who knows anything about actual fighting knows that that is so unlikely as to be nearly impossible. The sparring match in question was almost WWE-quality bullshit. Almost.

So, though I really looked forward to The Colony, there's little chance of me following it to its conclusion. The obviously staged inventions, the constant shrieking, Mike the asshole, and the pop-up psychologist all make it basically too stupid and annoying to watch, even for an apocalypse junkie such as myself.

Philosoraptor says: do not check it out.