The Colony on Discovery Channel

[MarshallDodge]

"With the next global catastrophe just around the corner, The Colony will test humanity's ability to survive."

This looks interesting:
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/the-...nt-begins.html

I am sure it will have it's ups and downs but I am going to watch the first episode and go from there.

[loupav]

Wow. That was filmed 2 blocks from my office.

[citizensoldier16]

Looked interesting at first, but after watching the previews, I'm convinced it's going to be a reality TV combination of "Survivor" and "MTV's Road Rules" (read: bitchy women in dirty clothes). I'm sure they will come up with some interesting episodes, however I'm not setting my DVR.

[Roy]

Lots of bitching...

and alot of the drama could have been prevented if one person was prepared or had a gun...

[PA PATRIOT]

Its all staged, they receive survival advice from some so called experts during the taping of the show and everything is pre-laid out for them to build what ever they need. Watch the credits at the end of the show and the producers sub-line will confirm this.

[Jerm]

Looks like they'll be introducing guns in the next episode.Sure to be...

Could be worse i guess.Some decent ideas(even if obvious to most here).

[Audacia77]

So far, I've caught the first three episodes. Still working in the sandbox and had to downloaded them off of iTunes. Pretty corny stuff but entertaining to an extent. Not sure what the deal is with some of those folks. Seems only two or three realy are bringing anything to the table. In a real world situation, I think that some of the fat would be trimmed. Didn't think the "wood gas" power generator idea was going to work. That was a good surprise. Got a good laugh when they decided to build a shower instead of working on their physcial security and then got jacked. That was a real knee slapper. Interested in how the season develops.

[Azul]

Most concerned that they are demonstrating these techniques and some people will listen. It irks me from the "look at the sheeple" perspective and my engineering background perspective(which might be my OCD). Since its basically JunkYard Wars redux i dont even want to comment on the "contestants" but rather the stuff they are building. Obviously we should have expected all the people who were ready for disaster are living just dandy in their houses watching old episodes of Tour of Duty instead of messing about in a abandoned factory.

Most concerned about the charcoal/sand filter

No mention of design efficiency kinda irked me from an engineering perspective. They could have gotten a long 4 inch PVC pipe and made tenfold more layers that would would made the water cleaner(although it would have been a slower process) than that drum they used for filtration.
No mention that they will have to clean that thing out eventually
It is not the same charcoal you cook with, but it could come from the gasifier they made(but that wasnt mentioned...)
You will die from using stuff meant for your BBQ pit.
You cannot filter out some heavy metals in that water with that setup. You need chemical modification and/or reverse osmosis to filter them out.
They also only had a brief frame or 2 of them boiling the water to remove bacteria and microbes, which their filter also does not do.

About the Gasifier
They missed the step about seperating the 2 gases made using a water scrubber(like the s trap in your sink) that separates the tar from the actual combustible gas
Will eventually result in the destruction of the engine it is fueling, a matter of few hours. I do think it would have been a grand compliment to a charcoal filter had they mentioned that....

Battery Bank
Complete Failure in many ways, i saw he tried to shunt it a little bit but putting different brand batteries together for a bank is a sin, and will continually drain power from it even while they sleep. They only needed 1 good battery to charge and recharge, it supplies more Amp-hours than they will use on their tools the whole show. A dead cell in the bank will screw up a lot of things as well. Obviously they are tasked with builds but who else here would put electricity on a top ten list for surviving?

Security
If it were me and mine shit would not be spread out over that huge building. You fix security first and you allocate resources and people to a central location instead of playing house and having a separate "kitchen". Would have build or rigged up something to wake everyone up from their beauty sleep the first day, even if it was a rigged up triangle bell. Weaponry would be taken care of and you could spend an episode showing sheeps proper instruction on firearm safety and operation instead of making stunguns( i admit though it was cool)

[Jaddra]

Hmm ... unwatchable for me just too out of reality even knowing it is a TV reality show. Sounded interesting/good concept in the beginning as some of the members mentioned, but after watching the third episode I realized that the poor execution made from "the colony" = "the comedy".
If I may make a recommendation - "SAS: Are you tough enough?" filmed by BBC. There are two seasons so far - "Desert" (1) and "Jungle" (2) and can't wait for the next one. I think Discovery should learn few tricks from BBC and try to improve their "The Colony 2" season.

[Elmer Fudd]

The complete lack of emphasis on security makes this show dangerous to watch for those who don't know any better. I guess full time guards, an alert plan, and realistic weapons were not telegenic enough, not to mention within the worldview of the people producing this show.

The "experts" they have giving commentary strike me as the kind of touchy-feely idiots that earn big bucks "consulting" for the Dept. of Homeland Security.

The dysfuctional anarchic leadership structure would get them all killed in real life - hence the effort expended on the deluxe shower, "gym", fireworks, etc.

The only interesting part of the show is building some of the devices.