The Colony

So, faithful readers know that I have an embarrassing prediction for post-apocalypse fiction.  Recently, I ran across a post-apocalypse "reality" TV show called The Colony.  About 10 people are stranded in an abandoned urban-blight warehouse/industrial compound and have to forge a new life.  There's no "game show" aspect to it.

The first season is made awesome by the presence of not 1, but TWO mad scientists. The first is a gray bushy-haired computer engineer named John.  Not too much of a spoiler:  at one point he builds a bad-ass fire-thrower.  The second mad scientist is even more awesome:  his name is Vlad.  He's a Croatian mechanical engineer, who's quite the woods-man.  He escaped from Communist Croatia when he was a teenager. Bonus: a second middle aged Croatian, a grumpy green contractor named Michael.

The show isn't intended (I hope) to be a "real" post-apocalypse scenario.  It's more like Mythbusters crossed with The Real World.  It's good fun, and has lots of awesome engineering porn.  (How to make wood gas, how to build a solar array, etc)

The second season, peopled primarily by attractive young people, is not nearly as good.  I stopped watching after the fourth episode of season 2. B+ for season 1, C for the first part of season 2.