Alone; Crazy Rich Agents

“It is an hour of people creeping cautiously through woods and startling at sounds we cannot hear. And then lying awake all night telling us how frightened they feel. It is very boring watching people be scared by noises. Still, once the constipation, dehydration and starvation kick in, things should improve.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Alone is really quite entertaining, if not always for the right reasons. When you drop 11 contestants miles from one another with no food, water or a proper tent and tell them to film it on their own cameras, it turns out that what you get is The Blair Witch Project — but with bears, not an evil spirit that leaves your friend’s body parts outside your tent (although there’s still time).”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Alone is already a hit in the US and Scandinavia, and you can see why Channel 4 imported the format. It had the human vs nature tension of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, while the survival of the fittest nature of the competition had a hint of Hunger Games (without the murder… yet). Still, while exciting, the degree of punishment and terror inflicted on the participants sometimes felt excessive. Slashed legs, bear terror, and 24 hours without water were of a different order to other reality shows.”
Ed Power, The i

“This is an unsuccessful twist on an old concept, Bear Grylls’s survival show The Island. Instead of one Bear, there are lots of bears, snuffling round the campers’ tents at night, along the banks of the Mackenzie river in the sub-Arctic Northwest Territories. The contestants are trying to outlast each other to win £100,000. But there doesn’t seem to be much purpose to the competition, apart from not dying.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Alone is very dull, as boring as unkind people say Canada is. As scary goes, and despite the portentous music and Blair Witch Project vibes, it’s about as suspenseful as a Duke of Edinburgh assignment in the Lake District.”
Sean O’Grady, The Independent

“If there’s nothing to do there and no-one for them to talk to, how is this show going to keep our interest unless it’s to watch people mentally unravel? And something doesn’t quite add up. TV companies have a duty of care. Is there really so little safety back-up? Channel 4 may pride itself on pushing the boundaries, but even the people who brought you Naked Attraction wouldn’t want to go down in history as the broadcaster who let a member of the public be mauled to death by a bear.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Everything about this show primed me to hate it. The title: a shameless rip-off of Crazy Rich Asians. The concept: The Apprentice crossed with Selling Sunset. And the prospect of looking at acres of identikit, international rich person decor: cream and black colour schemes, basement swimming pools, light fittings more suited to the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton. But I found myself warming to the rookie brokers vying for success. By the end of the first episode, I wanted all three of them to succeed.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph