New Alternate-Reality Series Puts 12 Strangers On Island Where South Won Civil War
I suppose that it was just a matter of time before someone tried this. Rumor has it that the 2005 series will use Auschwitz or the set of "Deliverance".
LOS ANGELES—CBS executives announced Monday that they have begun filming Antebellum Island, a new "alternate reality" series in which 12 strangers compete for $1 million while isolated on an island still under Confederate rule.
"Set to air in the spring of 2004, Antebellum Island gives us the unique opportunity to play with both social dynamics and recorded history," CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves said. "The contestants on Antebellum Island will spend 60 days braving the elements, each other, and the unfamiliar customs and practices of a 21st-century Confederate States of America—all for a chance to win a cool million."....
he Big Four networks have seen dwindling Nielsen numbers for variations on reality shows, a trend CBS hopes to reverse with a new genre of programs that "go beyond reality."
"When we were brainstorming this show, we knew we wanted an eclectic cast and an exotic locale," said Matt Davies, executive producer of Antebellum Island. "But none of the ideas were clicking as 'reality plus totally new'—until someone said, 'Hey, no one's done a show set in an America where the Union army lost, and Jefferson Davis replaced Lincoln as president.' We knew we had a winner."
Davies said CBS also seriously considered another alternate-reality series called The Man In The High Castle In The Outback, in which 12 women would compete for the love of a Jewish man hiding in Australia under an assumed name because the Allies lost WWII to Nazi Germany. Ultimately, executives deemed the scenario less likely to engage the average American viewer than the post-Civil-War alternate reality.
And who says television isn't a vast wasteland??
