Channel 4's new reality show Apocalypse, launching on Sunday 13 September, drops seven strangers into an abandoned town with no phones, electricity or infrastructure to see how they cope in a simulated societal collapse. The Guardian's TV critic argues the premise is a "slam dunk" because it tests a scenario almost everyone has idly imagined, but finds the results bleak rather than reassuring, as contestants quickly resort to hoarding, lying and tribal violence.

The cast includes stock reality-TV "types" such as a content creator, a Paralympian, a theatre director, a diesel mechanic and an Australian hunter, rather than ordinary members of the public. Food scarcity drives early conflict, with some contestants going three or four days without eating, rationing to a quarter of a tomato a day, and rival teams arming themselves with baseball bats after a can of Spam is stolen. The reviewer compares the show to Hunted but notes it imagines a world with no state at all, calling it unsettling viewing that reflects real anxieties about climate change, global instability and job insecurity.