Summary
Outlast Season 3 pushes Netflix’s survival format into the “influencer” era, driven by a $1 million prize pot and changing the environment to a jungle. Despite production crew boundaries, the grueling environment and psychological warfare make this the closest thing we have to a real-life Hunger Games.
Despite my excitement for Outlast: The Jungle, it was also a reminder of my discomfort with the format. When the original series landed on Netflix, I was impressed by the concept: folks with experience being outside, surviving against each other for an ultimate prize pot. This is the pinnacle of reality TV if you really think about it – it doesn’t get better than this.
But like all Netflix reality shows, eventually, it becomes less about the raw product and more about the attention that can be created following its release. The jungle version of Outlast, which may as well be marketed as Season 3, but instead markets like a “spin-off” (it isn’t), has markedly entered its “influencer” era. You can tell the production crew selected the cast based on attention and experience this time. It’s no longer just ordinary folk pitted against each other; it’s equally about enhancing careers following the release.
Yet, Outlast: The Jungle is still compelling and engaging despite this flagrant transition. Often, my thoughts betrayed me while viewing, as I regularly imagined what these groups of people in separate camps, with uniquely different and desperate situations, would do if Netflix abandoned the jungle and left the cameras behind. Would the scenarios turn sinister and violent?
It’s fascinating to see the primitive human desire to want to take more aggressive action curtailed by a production crew watching nearby. But that’s why my mind kept wandering. That’s how this show makes you feel. Outlast is the limit to reality TV. Or, that’s what I hope.
Unless this is a few steps removed from Hunger Games. Think about it. In that story, contestants form temporary, deeply untrustworthy alliances and the Gamemakers actively manipulate the environment to force people together. In Outlast: The Jungle, the production crew finds a variety of different ways for the vamps to cross paths and make ruthless choices.
Like, Netflix’s ghoulish Skyscraper Live did make me consider whether our dopamine-reduced brains would now be ready for a reality show that takes things too far. Viewers are easily bored; will there be a day when Outlast is not enough? It’s scary if you really think about it – how far would we be willing to go if we were entirely desensitised to violent events?
Putting aside my ideological view of reality TV, this series is a must-watch. Surviving for a cash prize pot of $1 million means that these camps are subject to betrayals and psychological warfare. It tests the kindest people, but also sees the most ruthless cast members of the show make the most shocking choices. This is coupled with moments where the production crew has to intervene due to injuries and the side effects of being exposed to jungle environments, where anything can hurt you – whether that’s animals, insects, the lack of heat from not being able to produce a fire, or the constant downpour of rain alongside a lack of clean water.
And honestly, within the limits of what is possible, there’s not much I’d change about the format. It’s as safe as it can be, and it provides enough of a story and tension to make this a worthwhile survival competition. Some reality fans want Love Is Blind constantly shoved down our throats, but I’d rather have this – Outlast: The Jungle really tests the human spirit. It’s not just many episodes of victimhood and sob stories. There’s a reason these people are upset.
Netflix keeps finding ways to make good concepts more popular. And, with “influencer” culture in mind, Outlast: The Jungle is the closest thing we have to a real-life Hunger Games. At least, a sanitised version. Even writing that feels mental.
