July 30, 2008: Apocalypse House

Aimee and I just finished watching Frontier House for the second or third time.

If you've never heard of it, Frontier House is a PBS reality show (though far more classy than most) in which three modern families battle the elements and their neuroses in a simulated 1883 Montana homestead. They chop wood, they raise crops, they build their own cabins. It's a fascinating show, all the more so because you get to see how the families react AFTER they return to the present day.

It occurred to me while watching it that we need Apocalypse House.

You find a modern ghost town somewhere remote, a place with plenty of abandoned stores and crumbling houses--everything you'd have when society collapses. The exact reason for the collapse, be it plague or zombie invasion or rapture, doesn't really matter; all the participants need to know is that the shit has hit the fan.

You take three average families and you let them live among the ruins, scrounging for food and fighting to survive. Maybe you hire some actors to drive through on motorcycles with big spiked mohawks and swinging chains. Maybe you have a cordon of zombies throwing rocks at the windows all night. You could also make weird lights glow in the sky or play eerie screeching noises. Whatever it takes to make the situation truly apocalyptic.

Then you sit back and watch. Do the families cooperate? Do they improvise weapons? Do they try to start a farm, or do they rely on the fermenting canned food in the local burned-out supermarket? Do they try to start civilization again, organizing town hall meetings? Or do they go feral, eating their weak and injured?

It's ratings gold, I tell you.

As far as I'm concerned, there are only two ways to really know someone: ask them if they believe in ghosts, and survive an apocalypse with them.

Posted by Will Ludwigsen on July 30, 2008 9:36 PM | Permalink