Have you ever watched a reality competition and said to yourself, “Wow, that’s not a lot of money for what these people are putting themselves through”? We think of this a lot, given how some of these shows push their contestants to physical and emotional extremes. In a new Fox series, there is the added factor that the contestants’ fate is in the hands of family members that are back in the relative comfort of a central headquarters.
EXTRACTED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “These mountains are extraordinary, timeless… and dangerous,” says a voice over as we see shots of the wilderness in British Columbia.
The Gist: In Extracted, twelve families send one of their members into the woods, alone, with nothing but a canteen and the clothes on their backs. The families are groups of threes, whether they’re parents and kids, cousins, siblings and friends, etc. The two that aren’t in the woods live in a place called “Headquarters” for the duration of the contest, where they can watch their loved ones on one of the dozens of cameras installed in the forest. At any time, the family members can hit a button and “extract” their loved one from the forest, but then they forfeit a chance at the show’s grand prize of $250,000.
The “survivalist” members of the family range from people with some outdoor survivalist skills to those who have none but want to prove themselves. That is definitely seen the first night, when those with skills make themselves adequate shelter and those without sleep without any protection.
On Day 2, the family members back in HQ each have a minute to pack a crate that will be part of a supply drop; the crate could have food, tools, sleeping bags, and elements to make fire. Whatever is in the latched box at the end of the minute is what the survivalist family member gets. On other days, family members will assist their survivalists in competitions and determine which ones get an advantage.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Extracted feels like Outlast combined with Big Brother.
Our Take: The first thing we thought of when we heard the deep-voiced announcer go over all the rules in Extracted, then announced the grand prize, was “boy, that doesn’t feel like enough money.” Sure, $250k is objectively a lot of money. But, given every season of Survivor offers a $1 million prize, and doesn’t have the added stress of being on your own and dependent on your family, who determines if you stay or go, the money seems low given the stress invovled.
We see this illustrated in the first family we meet, 18-year-old Anthony, the survivalist competitor, and his parents Yolanda and Tony. He’s the youngest contestant and has actual skills — he’s a competitive angler, for one thing — but when the supply drop crate his parents pack contains a tangled fishing line, Anthony mutters to himself about the “idiots” who packed his box, and then keeps telling his parents through the cameras that he wants out. This is despite getting a box stocked full of everything he needs and succeeding in starting a fire, something not everyone was able to do.
Yes, Anthony was acting like a petulant teenager, but what transpired back in HQ is even more illustrative. Yolanda, who described herself as a “cropduster parent”, chafes at her son’s behavior and wants to leave him there to “suffer.” Tony, not overly happy with Anthony’s entitled rants either, blames himself and thinks he’ll just be miserable out there.
In another case, Woody, a 50-year-old retired cop, is completely out of his element out there, and gets sick when he drinks lake water without boiling it first (he couldn’t get a fire started). His son and nephew, both more accomplished when it comes to surviving outdoors, decide to leave him there, despite the fact that he’s struggling physically.
All of this makes us wonder just why people sign up for shows like this. Another case in point: Davina, who is a party clown with no outdoor experience, almost breaks down after her first night, and her sister and stepdaughter do nothing but bitch about what she’s doing wrong. What did Davina expect might happen if she was left in the cold wilderness with no skills and no supplies? And then to put her fate in the hands of family members seems like a recipe for some nasty family squabbles if and when they finally get extracted.
So you have a chance of getting sick, attacked by wildlife, or suffer hypothermia, and then get into a family feud over the way they made decisions for you. All of this is why $250k — split three ways, that’s about $83k each, before taxes — doesn’t seem like nearly enough money for this kind of grief.
Sex and Skin: Woody walks around with his shirt open, but that’s about it.
Parting Shot: We see someone pushing the “Extract” button, but won’t see who it is until the beginning of the next episode.
Sleeper Star: Sure, it’s boring when we see someone who knows what they’re doing, Ryan W.’s skills are impressive. He’s the kind of guy who, as he says, can’t be told he can’t do something; he went from smoking to running an Ironman in a year because someone told him he can’t.
Most Pilot-y Line: The deep-voiced announcer is annoying and makes the show sound more like an infomercial than a reality competition.
Our Call: SKIP IT. Extracted is a show that brings out the worst in people and creates rifts in families where there may not have been one before the competition started.
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.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Extracted’ On Fox, Where Family Members Figure Out Whether To Pull A Loved One Who Is On Their Own In The Wildnerness appeared first on Decider.
