the colony: episode 9

This week, John V finally gets to do something.

We're up past day 30, and the Colonists have been at this for more than a month.It's beyond real to them; they've accepted this world entirely. But food is running very low, water is very low, morale is starting to get dangerously low. They go out to collect water, maybe some fish, and while they're there, a group of religious pilgrims or missionaries comes up the opposite way and asks if they have anything to spare; they say they don't, and the missionaries are fine with that, but John V, who came in with the strongest faith of the group, feels bad just turning them away, and gives them his own personal water. Before they all go their separate ways, a lady comes back and gives him a tin of vienna sausages, and that sets off a religious revival for him.

Later, when two travelers come asking for water, the Colony almost turns them away-- Joey tries to and Mike is all up in arms (and when is he not, really)-- but John V insists, and the girls go along and John C thinks everyone is basically good, and so they give the water and the sausages.

I see where the two are claiming it's a security issue and a survival issue, but they're supposed to be rebuilding society, and I think maybe they should be letting anyone in who can contribute and won't cause more strife than they already have, and it's nice to see someone being generous and helpful for once. We're hoping they get some sort of reward for this, like maybe those two come back and bring them food or another goat or something.

Other things:

We missed an episode a while back, and apparently soap was made, and it was tested and proven good this week.

The water needed to be purified in some way that didn't require boiling, because they've used up all their propaneand boiling it on the wood stove both uses their wood too quickly and takes too damn long, so John C starts work on an ozonater that will greate ozone, pump it into a bucket of water, and turn it from a horrible gray cloudiness to a pristine clear in half an hour per bucket, and that goes swimmingly. Mike helps with the pump, and he's so much better when he has something to do-- his voice is kinder and more level, there's less shouting, he seems way less threatened by the world... if I were there and had the luxury of noticing such things, I'd say we'd just have to keep him useful and busy all the time so he doesn;t have a chance to cause more fights.

Morgan saw the demoralization going on, and decided to fix a record player, which she basically had to rebuild from scratch, and managed to get working again, and when the music started playing, it was amazing. Everyone was dancing and laughing. It was moving, to say the least.

And John C found an old reel-to-reel player and fixed the lamp, and they played old videos without knowing what was on them-- they were old family movies, people on the Santa Monica boardwalk and the beach. It got everyone talking about what they miss for the first time, and sort of bonded them all in sadness. And it was amazing for the study: they talked about it all like it was really gone, like they wouldn't be going back in just over a month. They re re-devoted to saving themselves and culture and civilization, and it revived the need to build that truck and get moving for greener pastures... and it made me worry again about how they'll be able to survive the transition back to teh normal world when they go home.

Next week, someone from John C's family shows up, and they go on another raid for supplies, and it looks like that goes badly-- because this week there was almost no fighting, so they have to make it up next time.

Oh, and there was a comercial for a show where a guy teaches you how to live through any disaster, one massive cultural collapse each episode, and as soon as that hits the Hulu, I'm all over it (though it'll likely go on the other TV blog-- hypothetical is where scifi starts, not where it plays out).

the colony: episode 6

This week's ep was all about loss and communication.

Doctor George and Nurse Allison have been dealing with minor injuries, but they've realized that the first aid kit is getting very low and sooner or later, someone's going to need a hospital (some of them have already lost ten to twenty pounds), and so they build a nice clean little infirmary. To stock it, they go make a raid on an abandoned hospital not far from the Sanctuary. They find scads of useful things, scales and oil for the generator and bandages and basic medicines and things-- and George goes missing.

The search for him for hours, and can't find any sign of him, take all the stuff back, and then go looking again, and finally rule that he just isn't there, that he's been kidnapped or has gotten lost. There's all the stages of grief, and then they start doing something about it. Allison and Mike make a huge SOS sign and hang it like a billboard on the roof. Joey finishes the bed of the truck and they install the water tank that will allow them to bring water with them. Vlad builds fireworks to use like flares. And John C and Morgan start building a transmitter, a really old kind like they used to use on ships in the Atlantic in 1900, called a spark-gap transmitter. It shorts out the power, but they fix it and John C puts it on a battery so it won't do that again. Morgan rigs a reciever out of wire, a plastic jar, a phone reciever and an alligator clip, and that's one of the coolest things I've seen. Then she amplifies it with an old TV, and it gets cooler. And they work. The fireworks don't, but they've got the ability to transmit morse code in a way that people can pick up, and if George is out there, he can find his way home.

But over the credits, there was a voiceover where he basically said goodbye, so hopes are low now-- though he did say he's going to try everything in his power to get back. I wonder if something called him away from the show? I wonder if he knew ahead of time that he was leaving? He didn't have anything really dramatic to do, but he was a level head in a group of hotheads, and it was nice to have him around. It'll be scarier without him, though; how much can a trauma nurse do? Could she do surgery if she needed to? Maybe Amy, who was in Peace Corps will be able to do more; Allison is the Doctor now, and she'll need a Nurse if anything goes seriously wrong.

So now they're even more visible than they were, and they are getting low on resources and protein, and the stress is getting to them. The previews from next week don't tell us a great deal about anything other than that there'll be more yelling.

Here's what the offical site has to say about George:

"George grew up as an athletic, popular kid in Tampa, Florida to a family of doctors. After majoring in Marine Biology at University of Florida and considering a career as a marine mammal veterinarian, he decided to go to medical school because he liked to take care of people even more than animals. Medically trained in Tennessee and New Orleans, George is fond of traveling and has discovered a pleasant benefit to his job: he can do it anywhere. George is a thinker and doesn’t act before considering consequences of his actions because if he makes a mistake at work, someone could die. He is a strong fisherman, can start a fire and hunt. George returned to New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to provide care in makeshift medical units."

the colony: episode 4

Have you caught this show yet? I wrote about it on my Examiner column last week, and I've been following it since. I love this sort of thing. I've been thinking, pretty much since I was aware enough to know that I might need to worry about it, that I need to know how to survive, at least theoretically, in case the world collapses in my lifetime, and this show gives tons of that sort of knowledge. If they do another season, maybe I'll see about trying out.

A little background: ten people have been dropped into a post-apocalyptic LA, survivors of a plague that killed most of the world and toppled civilization. Their job is not only to survive, but to rebuild what they can of society, and stay sane while doing so. So far, they've daisy-chained car batteries to make electricity, figured out how to filter and store water, found a few sources of food, gone on one scavenging expedition, turned a lawn mower into a mini generator, built a shower, defended their warehouse-home from merauders, and decided to rebuild an old truck to give them mobility.

This week, they focused on building security. The attackers last week got in through a back door and smashed up the kitchen, damaging alot of their food and all the milk they got from their one adult goat(stollen from another camp outside the warehouse), so they filled up the stairwell with big heavy things, which is a great idea. They don't use that door, and even if anyone can still manage to get through it, the noise of moving all the stuff will serve as a warning alarm. They also reinforced some of the walls and added locking mechanisms to the doors. And while figuring out how to defend the front door, they found a little room up above everything, perched up in the rafters and without stairs or anything, where someone had been living. Inside, there was a bed, a bottle of vodka, a few magazines, and a safe with some money in it, which is useless now, but may come in handy later. And I'm sure that's foreshadowing; this show is a little like an RPG; you find things that will be useful later, but the results are entirely up to you.

As for the little room, I think they should move their sleeping quarters up there; it's the most defensible place there; no one even mentioned that fact.

Meanwhile, Leilani the personal trainer built a punching bag and declared one of the side rooms to be a gym, where she started teaching the girls how to defend themselves; Mechanic Mike couldn't see the value of that, and kept picking fights, but it should be obvious that the better able to defend themselves they all are, the better off the group is, right? And if someone was going to attack them while they were out foraging, they'd probably attack the girls first because they're smaller and more likely to be helpless, right? So I don't know why he's so pig-headed about it.

Also meanwhile, John C was working on mad-scientist weapons, and really looking the part with his dirty apron and wild hair and beard. He built a massive flame thrower and a six-foot-long taser; I hope the producers warn the merauders that these are real weapons, and to look out for them. The colonists don't know that no one can actually hurt them, and they've been at this for three weeks: it's real now. Vladimir managed to come up with a way to build non-lethal claymores, which is awesome-- and Amy went on about 'bread not bombs', so I think she's pacifist and that that might become a problem later.

They managed to get the truck engine working, after cleaning out the moving parts and getting the airflow, and now everyone is free to make it into some sort of mega monster mad-max machine, which should be awesome.

But the most trouble was the traders. Two traders on a big truck and with guns came, and they had things the colony needed-- namely, a brand new generator and the oil to run it, and fresh food. So the colonists traded away some of the power tools they didn't need for the genny, and then started fighting over the fact that Mike and Joey were speaking for everyone and making it all tense, and giving away all their canned goods-- their last can of tuna, among others-- and all the oranges, for perishables. Leilani wasn't having any of that, and there was a huge blowup, and that's distressing for survival. See, I understand that they know where the oranges are, and they know how to get them, but oranges aren't infinite or year-round, and no one in this group seems to know anything about plants, seasons, gardening or anything like that. They aren't planning, as far as we've seen, for the fact that the oranges might not be there when they go back. Maybe they just haven't mentioned the little garden out back, but it looks to me like they're ignoring a valuable resource, and so far, no one has mentioned anything about choosing foods with seeds they can plant and get more of for free.

But they did get two chickens, and if they can keep them well-fed, each will lay at least one egg a day, and if they don't lay, there's some extra protein in the form of chicken soup and / or roasted chicken. But a live and laying chicken is more valuable.

Next week shows a huge man and another woman returning to the warehouse and claiming that they already live there; I hope they're absorbed into the group. The point is to rebuild society, right? But it looks like there'll be more fighting. ::sigh::