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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Space Cadets

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00:26 / 21.11.05

It doesn't start for a couple of weeks yet, but it's been announced and is being heavily trailed, so I wonder what people's first impressions are of Channel 4's Space Cadets.

For those who don't know the story, during the summer Endemol advertised for 'thrill seekers' to take part in a ground breaking new reality show. The applicants were then interviewed and tested for suitability and contestants selected. They have been told that, in conjunction with the Russian Space Tourism Agency, Channel 4 were going to put the cadets through cosmonaut training, the 4 strongest candidates winning places on a genuine mission into space.
Of course it's a great big sniggering joke. The Russian Space Academy is a TV set in the home counties; the space craft carrying the winning punters, a state-of-the-art simulator; the staff and at least one of their number, actors.

More here.

It doesn't start until December 7, but already it seems to have generated some heat. This isn't a particularly new idea - gullible punters have been hoaxed on TV since Alan Funt created Candid Camera in 1948 (when Jeremy Beadle was still a foetus). It's not a particularly original idea - Channel 4's The Pilot Show did exactly the same thing 2 years ago, although budget dictating that they stopped short of faking the mission itself. But if the popular press and sites like Digital Spy are anything to go by, Space Cadets is, for many, overstepping the mark.

Possibly, the Channel 4 press office have been too honest about some aspects of the show. A lot has been made of their admission that they screened contestants primarily for their 'suggestibility' (in practice, selecting people who didn't ask too many questions). Others say that the 'prize' is just too big a deal to pull from under people's feet. It's just too cruel, they say - like hoaxing someone into believing they've won the lottery. But I'm not sure that explains the outrage. My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss dupes power-hungry Apprentice wannabes into thinking they're being recruited for a top job in a billion dollar corporation. I've not heard a squeak about that. Maybe we just that we have more sympathy for people who want to be spacemen than for people who want to be captains of industry or (*spit*) appear in Heat and pull a Hollyoak. I dunno.

Anyway, thoughts?

12:32 / 21.11.05

Gotta say, dubious ethics aside, that does sound very funny. At least, it could be, for a few episodes. The reactions when the people realise they've been duped will be worth watching for alone, methinks.

Is this just one more sign that reality TV is losing it's way, running out of ideas? It's not enough to be funny or original any more, now people want their reality 'nasty'. A prime example of this is this years' Big Bro, with it's evilness prompting most viewers to take great joy in other people not really enjoying themselves.

The Candid Camera/Beadle angle is interesting, but the saving grace of those shows and gags (I would say) was the relative brevity of the jokes. People wouldn't be conned for weeks, just a few minutes. Is this any better though? Where do we stand on making other people's lives a misery, just for our entertainment?

Me? I'm okay with it. (lol)

12:45 / 21.11.05

Ah, so that's what Space Cadets is. They're really trailing it heavily on C4 at the moment.

If it lives up to Smoothly's billing then this will be potentially incredibly entertaining. Are they really going to let them believe they are flying on a rocket into space? Brilliant.

13:11 / 21.11.05

Into 'Near Space' apparently, FP. Thus explaining away the minor detail of why they won't be weightless.

I can't see them falling for it but, god, who knows.

14:32 / 21.11.05

They are going to feel so cheated, I'm almost cringing already at the rapturous delight they are going to feel as they see the curvature of the Earth only to walk out of a simulator.

What if they have some kind of spiritual or religious experience? See the face of God?

It could be great.

16:27 / 21.11.05

...or what if they go crazy and hurt each other?
people often react badly to being lied to, and this is a pretty big lie.
i'd be pretty pised off if i was taken for a ride like that.
i doubt i'd be so dumb, but i dont think being dumb really invalidates your right to feel angry at the liars.

i hope endemol get sued and have to send folks into space, as much as i know they wont.
they have the lawyers, i'ms sure.

19:20 / 21.11.05

i doubt i'd be so dumb, but i dont think being dumb really invalidates your right to feel angry at the liars.

I'm not sure it's a matter of being dumb, at least I don't think stupid maps cleanly onto suggestible or trusting. Which is why I think this needles a bit. We know that the people being set up for this prat-fall are going to be ingenuous, uncynical, trusting types; qualities it's hard not to feel warm towards. Essentially, the victims are being selected for a particular kind of child-likeness. And the programme seems designed to antagonise those who lament the rise of that vague kind of jaded, hard-bitten, jaded, sneering cynicism that 'the media' is often blamed for. The audience is invited to revel in the crashing loss of someone's innocence. Even though it's related to existing formats, I'm not entirely surprised that to some people, this programme represents a shocking nadir in reality television.

I think Kaiser John is right about how it differs from ordinary Beadling. People will have given up their jobs to go on this show. But more importantly, traditional TV gotchas are the reverse of this. Bad news is contrived so the reveal is accompanied by relief. This is designed to excite people only to disappoint them. And we know how seeing someone's disappointment wrenches at the heart. I think toksik is right, the participants could be genuinely devastated by this. The disappointment then compounded by the humiliation; the laughing and the pointing. It's the stuff of nightmares. I honestly wonder if this kind of experience could properly damage a person.

Of course, they won't be able to sue. You can imagine the scope of the release form they'll sign for a programme like this. When The Pilot Show trialled watered-down versions of this stunt (including auditions for a real life Truman Show), they had contestants agreeing to sign a form stating that they might never be able to see their families again. When I think of it like that, I wonder if maybe Space Cadets is doing future generations of TV wannabes a service.

19:29 / 21.11.05

yeah.
gullible would have been better wordchice than dumb.

i'm sure that, in their excitement, many of the participants will have ignored the contract's details.

that makes it even nastier.
its a similar trick to the one thatrecord companies employ in signing new bands, i'd say.

i agree that they wont get to sue.
i justmeant it would make me happy.

it would make a great feelgood movie, hey.
imagine the happy to sad to happy transformatin of having your dreams of going into space dashed only to wrench your dream back form the 'bastards' who sought to 'grind you down'.

its a clasic fuck the power story.

19:34 / 21.11.05

Have the contestants been told the title of the show? If they have, it'll be slightly disappointing if at least one of them hasn't caught on by the end.

But *cruel*? I don't know. Presumably, the thrill-seekers involved won't have been tortured during the making of the series, or at least any more than strictly necessary. I can see how appearing on something like this might be potentially damaging to future employment/dating prospects - 'Christ, I knew I recognised you from somewhere...' etc, but then again, is someone who a)agrees to take part in something like this, and then b)doesn't take the piss from the get-go, really going to pan out as a work colleague or lover in any case?

19:35 / 21.11.05

Essentially, the victims are being selected for a particular kind of child-likeness

Although I'm not even sure that's necessary -most of the time, people believe what they want to believe and if it's something awesome such as going into space that's in the offing they (or anyone, really) are going to be far more likely to try to believe it, mostly thanks to the magic of cognative dissonance reduction. I think that's what I find nasty about the whole thing; it looks like it's going to be pitched as "lol at the thickies!" sort of thing (at least, that's what it looks like from the emphasis on screening the applicants), whereas in fact I think more people than would care to admit it would fall for it, especially if being in space had been some kind of dearly held / childhood ambition.

Then again, I really am particularly guileless, so maybe I'm projecting my own fears onto this...

19:49 / 21.11.05

alex
i think the problem is that the contestants will probably have to sacrifice a lot and go through hell to getto the end of the show.
to find out that you have stepped outside your comfort zones, pushed through pain barriers, made deals with yorself and all the other mental jumping and pushing one goes through in tough sitiuations for a big lie...
well, i think that would hurt.

did you go to university?

can you imagine if at the end of your finals, just as you were waiting for your results, they had told you it was all just a laugh and that the whole world could watch your disapointment for kicks if they want to?

you'd prolly spend a good while wanting to smack your advisor of studies in the face, wouldnt you?

19:55 / 21.11.05

oh yeah.
and what if one of the applicants has been told by hir doctors that ze has six months to live?
if ze doesnt share that with endemol(would you?) ze couldnt be screened out.(heck, it might even make the whole thing funnier, hey? "look at that guy! he just wasted his last days on earth on a SIMULATOR! haw haw!")

worst case scenario, sure.
still, though.

20:09 / 21.11.05

Yeah, I expect it will be comparatively grueling, as these things go. Maybe not SAS: Are You Tough Enough?, but I assume this training camp is a quasi-military installation, so tougher then BB I expect.

Vincennes - I don't think you're projecting anything unusual to you. I imagine they're depending on the childhood ambitioniness of the prize to lull people into a degree of wishful thinking.
I also think your fear that it'll take a 'laugh at the stoopid people' angle is well founded. Although I think they'll have do this to protect against backlash. The guileless child reading won't be what they want (even though I do think pulling it off will depend on those qualities more than any other). I expect they'll present their excitement as delusions of action hero fantasists, or fame hungry simpletons. I expect there will be quite a lot of emphasis on laughable training exercises and comedy cartoon Russians running the camp. They'll want us to want to see them humiliated, and there are pretty well established paths to that: Make up look ignorant, unsophisticated or jumped up.

20:17 / 21.11.05

but then again, is someone who a)agrees to take part in something like this, and then b)doesn't take the piss from the get-go, really going to pan out as a work colleague or lover in any case?

Do you really think so, Alex? I think lots of people would love to go into space, and it's people who want this most sincerely who are going to work the hardest of get one of the 3 places for the mission. In turn, they will be the people least inclined to blow it off at the first hint of a ruse, and are ultimately the people we're going to be asked to laugh at the hardest. And I do think that's quite cruel. The show punishes trust more than anything else.

20:34 / 21.11.05

I take our point, Mr t. But this is a 'reality' show on UK telly - shouldn't everyone who hasn't actually been living in space for the last few years be prepared for the, let's face it, more than outside possibility that the production company's basically just fucking about?

I'm not saying that I'm the sharpest tack in the packet, or anything like that, but if Channel 4, in conjunction with the Russian military, offered to send me into space, I like to think that I'd worry a bit, y'know?

Quite apart from anything else, 'reality' TV shows are notoriously cheap to do, whereas space exploration, um, isn't - As I say, I'm no Einstein, I'm no James Joyce, in fact I'm lower than a worm, but really, about five seconds of self-examination in the bathroom mirror would surely have spared these people the no doubt highly amusing, but nevertheless probably life-changing, and not in a good way either, humiliation that is now in the post.

20:45 / 21.11.05

Like you say, Reality TV shows are cheap (looking). So I imagine that if you did have your doubts during the interview process, they might be allayed somewhat when you're taken to (what I expect to be) an extremely elaborate, expensive and hardware-rich training camp.

It's not as if trips into 'near space' like this are the stuff of science fiction. There have already been space tourists and, as far as I know, Branson is still planning to make trips like this reasonably affordable. It's not totally ridiculous, is it?

21:10 / 21.11.05

shouldn't everyone who hasn't actually been living in space for the last few years be prepared for the, let's face it, more than outside possibility that the production company's basically just fucking about?

possibly...
but how close is that to suggesting that women who wear short skirts should expect lewd comments and behaviour?

i dont think it makes it okay.

21:11 / 21.11.05

I have a lot of problems with the concept but my biggest is that they are going to somehow find people whose life's dream is going to be to go to space but who are stupid enough to buy the lie about a lack of weightlessness. Anyone who has read even a teeny bit of SF or who knows any science, hell, anyone who has even seen Capricorn One is therefore written out. That can't leave many people who REALLY want to go into space.
So we'll be left with the sort of people who show off on stage at hypnosis gigs acting up in a confined space and trying to root each other. Hoo. Ray.

21:19 / 21.11.05

sorry, i should make that last pointdifferently...

if they are unable to spot the trick, that could be called a weakness. those in charge of the prgram are well defended by lawyers, money and manpower. theycould be seen as strong, or at least powerful.
weakness is being exploited for the amusement of the 'strong' or 'powerful'.

is that not bullying?

and is bullying based on weakness of wits any better than bullying based on weakness of body?

23:20 / 21.11.05

stupid enough to buy the lie about a lack of weightlessness.

Bear in mind that I might be quite stupid by your metric, but I think I might buy that lie if it was sold to me in the right way.

If they're told that the craft will never actually leave the Earth's orbit, that it will be accelerating at so and so thousand meters per second per second, and that this created a centripetal G-force within the capsule of 0.9 in a direction 90 degrees to the perpendicular.... blah blah blah, I might think that sounds plausible. And I've got a physics A-level somewhere.
Thing is, people will go along with all sorts of things in the right circumstances. For example, if there was another contestant there who I understood to be an astrophysics student or aeronautical engineer or something, and she bought it... you know I might just buy it off the back of that. We defer to people all the time in that way. People ignore their reservations pretty quickly in the face of peer pressure. Didn't Milgram, Bickman et al do various experiments showing this? (I assume this is the one of the sociological points the producers will claim they're trying to make)
Remember, there will be loads of stooges all over the place. As I understand it, one of the 4 contestants on the final mission will be an actor.

Dunno, maybe it's just me and Vincennes, but part of the reason I don't like the idea of this show is that I fear I could have been one of those poor fucks, at a pinch.

01:38 / 22.11.05

Yeah... I'm almost certainly protesting too much, to be honest. I'd no doubt have bought this hook, line and sinker if I'd been selected for the show.

What I worry about, though, (and this is a pretty much constant source of amazement, with regard to Big Brother etc, although I do appreciate that there's group dynamic involved, you don't want to let the side down, and so forth, but even so...) is the idea that anyone, anywhere, is prepared to be told how they should or shouldn't behave not by the police, and not by the government, and not even by someone they have to put up with on a day-to-basis in a management role at the office, but by what, after all is, in the final analysis, a TV production company.

I'm definitely gullible enough to have 'gone into space,' but only up till the point where I was asked to go through any sort of physical/emotional/etc distress whatsoever. At which stage I imagine I'd have said a number of fairly unchristian things to whoever it was that was proposing them.

Ultimately, these'd be 'reality' telly production people that one was dealing with - They legitimately, I think, can be told to 'eat shit in hell,' because a)they should do that in any case anyway, the fuckers, and b)how exactly would they plan on getting you back?

02:30 / 22.11.05

the idea that anyone, anywhere, is prepared to be told how they should or shouldn't behave [...] by what, after all is, in the final analysis, a TV production company.

i think the thing is that the rubes need endemol more than endemol needs the rubes.
they will be people who are highly unlikely to have access to space any other way, and further, who will probably have no other opportunity to get on television.
it works like a lot of cons do.
it uses the realisation of your hopes and dreams to dazzle you.
its the same as your 419 scams, for example.
those depend on the mark's desire for and lack of access to large amounts of cash to aid in the denial of any niggling doubts.

if you watched the pilot show mentioned above, you would have seen that whenever anyone was threatened with being out of the running they soon toed whatever line they were being asked to.

different folks will have a different balance in the power struggle between their desire and their incredulity, but the mechanism works for most people.

too good to be true vs too good to pass up, innit.

08:11 / 22.11.05

Ultimately, these'd be 'reality' telly production people that one was dealing with - They legitimately, I think, can be told to 'eat shit in hell,' because a)they should do that in any case anyway, the fuckers

Now now, Alex. They’re just trying to earn a living, like you or me.

09:00 / 23.11.05

Now I've actually bothered to read the original link, I think I was a bit harsh on the "stupid" thing. I was under the impression it would be a Big Brother style thing with everyone stuck on a shuttle mock-up fairly early, so that the weightless thing would be glaringly obvious to anyone with basic reasoning skills and a good inner ear.
My fault.
Nevertheless, I still reckon it's pretty cruel.

XXII:X:II = XXX

17:15 / 23.11.05

Woo, I actually got the news out about this over on the "Redeeming Star Trek" thread, mostly because it's in many ways similar to an idea I'd had for doing just that. Just how long is it going to be before we see Elijah Wood producing "Hobbiton House" or something else similarly departed from any semblance of "reality" in reality TV?

18:12 / 23.11.05

You know, people do actually go into space (and near-space) all the time, nowadays.

In fact, I've been wondering for about half of this thread if it isn't cheaper (now that the testing & experimentation is all done) to send SpaceShip One into space than it is to film a season of a reality TV show. I mean, it's basically a metal tube that burns rubber and laughing gas to shoot a handful of people really high in the air. Once you've built the tube, the rest seems pretty cheap.

I'm beginning to think the thrill of the show will be the inevitable final episode when the kindly, childlike subjects explode in rage and begin kicking the cameras.

18:45 / 23.11.05

I reckon it probably would be cheaper, grant. That's why I don't subscribe to the school that says it will just be obvious to the contestants that it's a hoax.

I think they've been quite smart about how they've turned what might at first seem prohibitive to the deceit into advantages. Thanks to the Branson publicity machine's work on Virgin Galactic, the difficulty of simulating vertical acceleration is solved. For this kind of thing, a traditional take-off makes more sense (and can be faked with a centrifuge). The idea of a Near Space flight doesn't sound like a cover-up, it adds to the plausibility of the whole project.

I see Tom's also been talking about this on Plasticbag, and some of the comments there have broadened my expectations of exactly how far the production might push this. If they can get 3 contestants to believe that they are orbiting the Earth (and I'm feeling increasingly confident that they might), then why stop there? People keep comparing this to The Truman Show (for reasons I don't quite understand), whereas my thoughts are beginning to turn to Apollo 13.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:22 / 24.11.05

But more importantly, traditional TV gotchas are the reverse of this. Bad news is contrived so the reveal is accompanied by relief. This is designed to excite people only to disappoint them. And we know how seeing someone's disappointment wrenches at the heart. I think toksik is right, the participants could be genuinely devastated by this. The disappointment then compounded by the humiliation; the laughing and the pointing. It's the stuff of nightmares. I honestly wonder if this kind of experience could properly damage a person.

That's my problem. I keep imagining how fucking excited I'd be if I thought I was ACTUALLY! GOING! INTO! FUCKING! SPACE!!! and how crushing it would be when I realised it was all a trick so people could laugh at me for being a stupid fuck.

I'm hoping they catch on. REALLY early. THEN it'll be a show worth watching.

07:19 / 24.11.05

Smoothly: I'm not thinking Apollo 13, I'm thinking Capricorn 1.

09:18 / 24.11.05

Yeah, Phoxy, a kinda Bizarro Capricorn 1:

The crew of a non-existent mission are the only ones unaware that they’ve been conned into thinking they’ve gone into space. When a problem with the life-support system is faked, the Astronots are made to think they’re about to die.
The ruse is finally revealed to them, to the amusement of the general public who have been in on the hoax the whole time, whereupon they track down those who orchestrated the deceit and try to kill them, possibly with helicopters.

But seriously, if the programme makers manage to convince their marks that they are orbiting the earth in a spaceship, do you think they'll be content to stop there? Life-support failure, alien invasion, the face of God... my TV brain instinctively starts to think that that's where the real 'fun' would begin.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:24 / 24.11.05

but how close is that to suggesting that women who wear short skirts should expect lewd comments and behaviour?

16:57 / 24.11.05

you think women who wear short skirts should expect to be sent up to space on exploding shuttles?
that seems a bit....
well, insane...?

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:13 / 25.11.05

I think that the subtitled version of that post may be:

but how close is that to suggesting that women who wear short skirts should expect lewd comments and behaviour?

Not very close at all. Quite far away in fact.

20:33 / 09.12.05

It has now started and it's very funny.

Little voice inside: But it's so mean!

Yes but it's very funny.

Is anyone else watching?

20:45 / 09.12.05

I saw the bit about Minsk tonight, and also 'Well, the problem here is probably poor draughtsmanship, but it is meant to be the Fonz'. I had mentioned (maybe in this thread, actually) that I had no intention of watching any of it, ever, but it is much more ridiculous than I thought it would be. Of course, the fact that it makes me laugh means I would say that. I've only seen a bit of tonight's episode though, what else have they done?

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