Think of the most extreme reality shows you have ever seen. ‘The conqueror of the end of the world’ and those tests where people break their teeth without problem; ‘Survivor’ and the challenges in which they endure for hours on their feet after days without eating; ‘Fear factor’ and the bees on the contestants’ faces… And none will come even remotely close to the craziest, most impossible and most extreme contest ever created. Welcome to the ‘Shattered’ story. Try not to fall asleep.
One, two, sing out loud
Year 2004. The magic of the novelty of ‘Big Brother’ began to dissipate and the creators of half the world tried to launch reality TV projects that will attract attention at all costs. It is from this time ‘Worst Driver’, in which the worst drivers, without a driving license, overcome challenges to get the card back, or ‘Can you be a porn star?’, whose title says it all.
In this environment of the most impossible entertainment “sociological experiment” dress, a group of producers got together to “explore what it means to live in a hyperconnected world where technology made us always on”. Or, translated, a program in which they were looking for a person who could go as long as possible without sleeping. The prize, 100,000 pounds, to which 1,000 would be removed for each time the contestants closed their eyes for more than ten seconds. Very healthy everything.
But they were not satisfied with this torture: every day, from 2 to 4 in the morning, the challenge took place “If you sleep, you lose” in which the contestants had to stay awake before tests such as being hugged by a teddy bear, having a grandmother tell them stories, sit in a comfortable chair watching the paint dry, seeing a symposium on triangles for the second time or counting sheep on television. And the thing did not end here.
178 hours
The ten contestants, who had an abandoned London shopping center to explore, had to face different tests every morning: a test of memory, time perception and mental agility. The ones that will lower your score the fastest they should meet that night in a challengeand only one person would be victorious and could continue in this reality / torture.
Along the way, the contestants had several hallucinations. Chris, who finished second, thought he was the king of Australia; Dean and Jonathan believed their clothes had been stolen; Claire started making up stories about her life… But it could have been even worse. Producers had ideas that Endemol had to stop, like give them electric shocks to keep them awake. Instead, they had a session with a psychiatrist and a daily health check. You think you’re the president of Australia, yes, but you’re like an oak.
And in the end, who won this madness? It was Clare Southern, nicknamed “Terminator”, who took £97,000 (by closing his eyes three times for ten seconds) thanks to outlasting the others in the final test. On the seventh day, the remaining three contestants they had to get into bed and stay awake as long as they could: Jonathan and Chris lasted half an hour, but Clare lasted two more hours, until the producers forced her to sleep after 178 hours, or 7 and a half days. In the end, Clare’s insomnia problem wasn’t from lack of sleep, but from having to go to the bathroom, but she was afraid to speak up in case that disqualified her.
Tricks not to sleep
As always (as soon as you’ve seen ‘UnReal’ you already sense it), not everything is as they paint it on television, and there is always a trick up his sleeve. To make sure the contestants could be more than just sleepy scraps, the producers let them take 45-minute naps from time to time. Also, Chris has accused Clare of having a trick to stay awake: cause foot cramps on purpose. Hey, as long as it worked for him and was within the rules…
And after that? How does one recover from the experience of going a week without sleep? Well, the truth is that, to everyone’s surprise, there was no long-term problem. It is true that Clare, when she returned, stopped in the middle of a sentence and collapsed over a bowl of soup at her parents’ house, but a week later she returned to her normal life, only that with more money in the account.
In the end, ‘Shattered’ aired in its entirety between January 4 and 10, 2004, against the advice of the Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy. These 178 hours were not a world recordwhich is currently at 18 days, 21 hours, and 40 minutes, but, just in case, nobody better try it. The British reality show did not have a second season but it has gone down in history on its own merits. Doesn’t ‘The Island of Temptations’ seem so crazy to you?