WHOEVER STARVES LEAST, WINS

BEHIND THE MAKING OF ALONE, THE MOST GENUINELY PERILOUS SHOW ON TELEVISION.

- NICHOLAS QUAH

IN LATE FEBRUARY, a team from Leftfield Pictures, the production company that makes the History Channel's Alone, convened over Zoom to view an early version of an episode from the show's tenth season. The series, which premiered in 2015, is a competition reality show. Each season, ten contestants are dumped in the wilderness with limited supplies and must fend for themselves as long as they can. The last person standing wins $500,000. Almost all of the footage is taped by participants. Since the survivalists for the new season left the field, around 15 assistant producers had spent months logging the mountains of raw recordings. This was the first time the producers were seeing the edit.

In the episode, James “Wyatt” Black, a Canadian contractor who is a familiar archetype on the show—pure mountain man, all machismo—isn’t doing so hot. Several days into deployment, he has failed to secure food beyond berries. His body is not getting enough calories to maintain mass. Then, at the end of day five, there’s a successful fishing attempt. Overjoyed, Wyatt does a little dance for the camera. The footage progresses through the fish-preparation process: gutting, filleting, grilling. He makes a euphoric sound as he bites into flesh.