The Island with Bear Grylls branded “unreality TV” after pig slaughter
The Island with Bear Grylls has been branded “unreality TV” after its latest episode.
The Island currently airs on Monday nights on Channel 4.
A total of 16 contestants were sent to live in an uninhabited pacific island with just the clothes on their back and a few basic survival tools.
As always, they’ll be filming everything that happens themselves as they try to survive for five weeks.
This year, the two sets of contestants have been grouped by their wages. One group earns an average of £100,000 a year while the other earned less than the national average.
In the fourth episode this week, after three weeks on the island, the castaways were malnourished. Still living at opposite ends of the same beach, the wealthy and less well-off teams finally put their differences aside in a joint hunting expedition, in a bid to solve their food crisis together.
It ended with the group killing and eating a wild pig they had come across.
Around 2 million viewers tuned in but some were unhappy with what they saw.
Will Travers, president of animal welfare charity Born Free, complained to The Sun newspaper: “It is a poor rerun of Lord of the Flies – but at least that was a work of fiction.
“They call it reality TV. But The Island is unreality TV – pointless, voyeurism, featuring self-inflicted suffering.”
Before joining The Island contestants were given lessons in the humane dispatch of animals.
The Island With Bear Grylls airs Monday nights, 9pm, Channel 4.
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