Ukrainian program will put participants on deserted Caribbean island
Channel 1+1 will launch a local version of the popular American reality TV series “Survivor,” and the station’s managers said the program is bound to be the most expensive ever produced by Ukrainian television.
Oleksandr Rodnyansky, general producer of 1+1, said the program “Last Hero” will begin airing Nov. 17. Rodnyansky said Ukraine will become the 12th country to film a knock-off version of “Survivor,” a show that has become immensely popular in most countries where it has aired.
The program, a joint production of 1+1 and Russian state-owned channel ORT, is touted by 1+1’s managers as an “unprecedented project” for Ukrainian television. Ukrainian TV channels produce little original material, with several popular entertainment shows being imported from Russia. Rodnyansky said 1+1 and ORT acquired the rights to produce the program after purchasing a license for the show from Britain’s Action Time and a permit for the program’s American modification from CBS.
“This is going to be as good as, if not better, than the American version,” he said.
He said “Last Hero” will be broadcast on Saturdays over a 13-week period.
In the show, 16 people – eight women and eight men – are sent to an uninhabited island to compete for a hefty financial award.
The feature’s guests are provided with just 3 kilograms of rice and a gallon of water. The participants, four Ukrainians and 12 Russians, are forced to live off the land, surviving on the deserted island for 39 days.
Every three days, the contenders expel one person from the island by secret ballot. The sole survivor receives a $100,000 cash prize.
Iryna Pobedonosova, spokeswoman for 1+1, said that though the producers don’t expect the participants, all former Soviet citizens, to be particularly intimidated by physical discomfort, they hope the contenders will fight to win. So-called “reality TV” programs have proved popular with audiences in the United States and elsewhere. Contestants can be ruthless, disloyal and conniving – traits viewers love to watch.
Competing is popular as well. Pobedonostseva said the program’s organizers received 3,000 applications from hopeful heroes and used psychological tests to select the first group of competitors.
Unlike producers of the program seen in the Baltic countries, who chose to maroon contestants on a conveniently located Baltic Sea island, Rodnyansky said 1+1 and ORT opted for Bocas del Toro, an island in the Caribbean off the coast of Panama and Costa Rica. Except for the program’s contestants, the only persons on the island during production are the film crew and representatives of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry who “hide in the bushes,” he said.
He also said the channel is planning to broadcast a translated version of the “American Survivor” series after “Last Hero” ends.
Choosing to film on a tropical island has inflated production costs, Rodnyansky said, but the producers hope it will add appeal to the show. While Rodnyansky wouldn’t discuss the exact cost, he hinted the cost of the project significantly exceeded $1 million.
The program received some funding from Ukraine’s Green Party. Mykola Fartushny, a Green Party spokesman, wouldn’t specify how much the party had contributed to the production, but said that the party’s involvement was in line with the Green Party’s global strategies of drawing social attention to various “problems.”
“We support the idea of putting humans back in harmony with nature,” Fartushny said.
