The producers of the second season of the Colony are just mean. There’s no other way to say it. On an emotional level, the final episode felt very real. Jim has gone bug nuts crazy; Sian leaves the group without a second thought, and the rest start arguing about who asked who if they wanted to leave most.

The fire bombing of their old house was a little over the top. Where did the other group get explosives? Then, the final frame, showing a large group of people walking out of the house the group thought they would take over.

I appreciate that they wanted to have at least one person exposed to the virus and be removed, after all, what kind of apocalypse is this if there’s no actual danger. I wish it hadn’t been Michael and Amber (late arrival, early departure) but I understand why it happened.

What I don’t understand is why everyone else is still all gung ho to go to the fishing shack. They’ve been attacked, and kidnapped, but no deadly virus. Now they’re all eager to leave the attacks to go somewhere where half of the scouting party “died”. Does that really make sense?

It’s called a moment of recognition, and it is an essential component to a good novel. I realize The Colony is unscripted, but a moment of recognition is what I need to continue caring about these people. Just a moment to realize they aren’t the only ones struggling to survive, that the way to rebuild society is not to attack everyone you see.

But the producers have taken away that possibility. By refusing to give the colonists any positive interactions with strangers, they have taken away the one thing that makes these people human beings, not animals struggling to survive.

I really want to like this season of the Colony more. I remember last season being so much better. Once again we had two contrived encounters. The first one negative; the second positive. Once again, the only positive encounter centers around adding a new person to the group. There are no positive encounters when we don’t need to integrate new people. Why were there raiders when the pregnant woman came and they were all around the house, but not when they all left the house to have dinner with Tick?

There’s enough inherent drama in the situation. Let it be.

The contrivances are going to make it hard for me to come back for a third season. Last year when George, the doctor went missing, it felt real. Even knowing it was a TV show, having him disappear in the depths under the hospital felt like a realistic possibility and an impactful experience for the other participants.

The kidnapping in tonight’s episode just doesn’t work for me. I get that they know these people have gasoline (or at least a good guess that they do) but how do they know about medical supplies? Its just starting to get to me.

One of my biggest problems with this season’s The Colony is that each episode starts out with a contrived experience. I accept that if you went and raided some people’s things, they might follow you to get them back, and they might even set a house on fire. But at the same time, given what the world can actually throw at people- in this same episode, a major storm that brought some much needed relaxation (everyone showering in the rain) but also new stresses (how bad the house leaks and losing their bridge), do we really need all the contrivances?

Watching The Colony. It is one of those things that, I guess, can never be realistic enough. There are camera people there, and you know you signed up for an experiment. No matter what stress they put you under, you know it is not real, and that its for a limited time.

Tonight’s example- we’re told in the introduction that they are supposed to “rebuild” but they are afraid of people finding out that they are rebuilding and wanting to come to the area. Apparently, they know how to rebuild a house. They have no idea about rebuilding a society.

The Colony on Discovery has returned for a second season. The premise is that there has been an apocalypse, and this group of people has to survive and rebuild.

In the first season, we had a generic apocalypse. In the new season, we are told it was a pandemic, so concepts that weren’t in the first season, like a need to quarantine members of the group after contact with outsiders, were prevalent in the season opener.

There are things they do I like; there are things they do I disagree with, but wither way, its makes for great conversational television.