Solitary (TV series)
| Television broadcast | |
|---|---|
| German title | Solitary - Defeat Yourself! |
| Original title | Solitary |
 | |
| Country of production |
United States Germany |
| Year (s) | 2006-2009 |
| Production company |
 Safe TV
|
| length | 135 minutes |
| Episodes |
 36 in 4 seasons 9 in 1 season |
| Broadcasting cycle |
Weekly |
| genre | Reality game show |
| Moderation |
Sonya Kraus Claudia Urbschat-Mingues (voice of Alice )
|
Solitary (English shortened for " solitary confinement ") is an American reality game show that was broadcast from 2006 to 2010 in four seasons so far on the Fox Reality Channel . A German version filmed in the original Los Angeles setting was broadcast on ProSieben from July 17 to September 11, 2010 .
In the show, nine candidates are left on their own in cells of eight square meters each . They spend ten days in voluntary "solitary confinement" without any connection to one another or to the outside world, and they are allowed to leave at any time. The participants have to prove their endurance in various tests. While unknown people appeared in the US original, more or less prominent people were selected for the German version .
A classic presenter - in the American original Todd Newton, in the German version Sonya Kraus - appears very rarely on the show. Instead, candidates are instructed by a female voice who introduces herself as a computer named Alice.
Content of the show
The show describes itself as a social experiment which aims to get the participants to "defeat themselves". The tasks depend on the physical, but above all the mental endurance of the candidates.
The show begins with the players moving into their "capsules"; octagonal cells about eight square meters. They stay there for ten days and ten nights. Each capsule is equipped with numerous cameras (some behind one-way mirrors ) and microphones. On the walls there is a food hatch and a flat screen that represents Alice's computer. Below the screen there is a green button that candidates can use to register their wishes, and a red button that they can use to cancel their participation at any time. The bathroom is located in a connected "private capsule" (which also has a camera attached). Everything in the capsule (lights, the pull-out bed, etc.) is under Alice's control. The players are not given any indication of the time.
The food is rationed, according to the statements in the program balanced, but not very tasty. It is reminiscent of astronaut food . For example, there is tofu , unseasoned rice and uncooked cauliflower .
The episodes - apart from the first - are divided into two sections: a “safety game” and a “decider game”. The candidates play against each other, but without knowing it directly. Most of the time, physically and mentally strenuous tasks have to be solved that take several hours. When all players have finished or abandoned the game, the winner will be announced. The winner does not have to participate in the upcoming playoff.
In the decider of the first German episode, for example, the candidates were woken up at irregular intervals by the song " Looking for Freedom " by David Hasselhoff . Then they had to enter a sequence of digits into a keyboard that was getting longer each time. Only those who entered the code correctly could sleep on until the next wake-up call. This form of sleep deprivation has been compared to torture methods by several media outlets.
The winner becomes the “Solitary Superchampion” and received money in the US version and nothing in the German version. There was no title defense.
Alice
Alice (for Artificial Intelligence Computer Educator , English for "artificially intelligent computer educator ", apparently based on ELIZA ) can be heard in the nine capsules of the candidates as the female voice of an alleged computer. For the time of the show, Alice takes control of the lives of the candidates whom she addresses as "my guests". Alice is also aimed at individual candidates and speaks to them to a limited extent, using no names but only the number of the respective capsule to address. Your goal is to push the candidates to their physical, mental and emotional limits.
In the American original, the computer is called Val (short for Valerie , based on HAL 9000 from the 2001 film : A Space Odyssey ). In the first season the voice was male, from the second season a distorted female voice was used.
American squadrons
Solitary first aired on the Fox Reality Channel from May 29 to July 31, 2006 . The participants were comparatively normal, unknown private persons who were sometimes only introduced by their first names; The winner was a 32 year old English teacher. From the second season, the show was numbered with version numbers . Solitary v2.0 aired August 4 through October 6, 2007; The winner was a 22-year-old photographer. After a break, Solitary v3.0 and Solitary v4.0 ran from January 17 to March 7, 2009 and January 29 to March 20, 2010, respectively; Both seasons were won by 20-year-old students.
The games played were mostly trivial and designed to last several hours. For example, it was about building dominoes , solving monochrome puzzles, simple endurance sports or often also persevering in a certain position.
German relay
The following people took part in the German season recorded in 2009:
| capsule | Surname | Age | job | Hours | placement | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Dirk Schlemmer | 25th | Law student, Mister Germany 2008/2009 | 222 hours | 1st place | winner |
| 4th | Liza Li | 22nd | Singer, presenter | 222 hours | place 2 | Moving out after failing the final task |
| 1 | Doreen Seidel | 24 | Student, Playmate of the Year 2008 | 208 hours | place 3 | Moving out after a failed task |
| 7th | Kay Boeger | 38 | actor | 171 hours | 4th place | Moving out after a failed task |
| 3 | Murat Bosphorus | 30th | Professional wrestler | 120 hours | 5th place | Moving out after a failed task |
| 2 | Martin Kesici | 37 | Musician, singer | 72 hours | Rank 6 | Moving out after a failed task |
| 6th | Funda Vanroy | 32 | Moderator (including Galileo , Night-Loft ) | 48 hours | 7th place | Moving out after a failed task |
| 5 | Magdalena Brzeska | 32 | sportswoman | 40 hours | 8th place | voluntary move out |
| 8th | Benny Kieckhäben | 20th | Entertainer, singer, DSDS candidate | 50 minutes | 9th place | voluntary move out |
The playoff of the sixth episode was stopped prematurely in order not to endanger the health of the participants. There was no loser in this episode; likewise in the fourth, in which a common goal was achieved. For this, two candidates left the show in the second episode, one of them voluntarily. The winner Dirk Schlemmer had already won five of the nine safety games, including all of the last four.
References to other formats
The format is often compared with the older reality TV formats of the competing company RTL Group , including Big Brother , which was broadcast ten years earlier by RTL II for the first time , whereby Solitary does not focus on the conflicts between each other, but on the conflicts of each individual . himself participation prominent candidates who voluntarily impose on torture is, with that in Germany by RTL broadcast I'm a Celebrity - get me out of here! compared.
Reviews
“The test arrangement with its striking borrowings from George Orwell [...] provides for a rougher kind of trash TV. Nine people let themselves be shown as guinea pigs. They submit to television as an authority that judges and rejects, orders and reprimands, prepares and praises. Maybe they had fun doing it, but it is fun that tastes like lies and kowtowing . "
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Quota meter: “Big Brother” was against a kindergarten , accessed on July 19, 2010.
- ↑ Sonya Kraus puts celebrities in solitary confinement ( Memento from December 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ - ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ ProSieben: Alice Column ( Memento of the original from July 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed July 19, 2010.
- ↑ Newsblitz: Benny Kieckhäben has left Solitary , accessed on July 24, 2010.
- ↑ Medienmagazin DWDL.de: 'Big Brother' was yesterday: New reality show is coming . August 14, 2009. Therein: “Ten years after the start of the reality TV genre with the first 'Big Brother' season on RTL II in 2000, ProSieben will go one better in the coming year. [...] Working title 'Raumschiff Cubus'. "
- ^ Spiegel Online: ProSieben torture show - In the digestive tract of private television , July 17, 2010
- ↑ sueddeutsche.de Sonya Krauss must hurt , July 18, 2010
