Figuring strongly in the reality television boom of the late 1990s to early
2000s, social experiment programmes pluck participants from their everyday lives
and place them in unusual situations with cameras on hand to record their every
move. Unlike its reality cousins the 'docusoap' and the 'gamedoc', social
experiment television stakes a claim to inform its audience as well as
entertain them.
The format received a surge in popularity at the turn of the millennium as
schedules were crammed with series such as The 1900 House (Channel 4 1999) and
Castaway 2000 (BBC, 2000), but social experiments on television can be traced
back at least as far as the 1978 BBC series Living in the Past, as well as
one-off documentaries devoted to experimental living.
Though it employs some of the strategies of the 'fly-on-the-wall'
documentary, social experiment TV creates situations that participants would
never otherwise experience - surviving on uninhabited islands, living in the
Iron Age, becoming part of a new family. It is this element of construction that
is unique to the format although this can manifest itself in different ways; in
some examples presenters or personalities are invited to learn a new profession
or try a new lifestyle, while others see members of the public volunteering for
immersive experiences. Despite the heavily constructed scenarios and the
requirement for programme makers to formulate a narrative from a series of
experiences, the attempts by the participants to manage their assignments and
the real emotion on display make these 'experiments' compelling television.
Decades before the castaways set foot on Taransay, Nigel Kneale's drama The
Year of the Sex Olympics (BBC, tx. 29/7/1968) presented a future in which television audiences
addicted to reality television savoured the mishaps of a family on a not-so
deserted island. Journalist James Hogg tried it for real when he spent two weeks
on an uninhabited Scottish island for magazine programme Nationwide (1969-84) in
The Adventures of Robinson Hogg (tx. 22/12/1975). Happily the bleakness of 'The
Live Life Show' as imagined by Kneale was not borne out in Castaway 2000 when 36
volunteers spent a year away from modern life creating a community an
uninhabited island in the Outer Hebrides. While managing the food supply and
dealing with the rough conditions of the island was tough, the biggest challenge
would prove to be getting along together.
A single edition of history programme Chronicle (BBC, 1966-91) followed
Danish family the Bjornholts as they spent 'A Fortnight in the Iron Age' (tx.
29/4/1976) and Living in the Past gave the format a full series devoted to
volunteers living on an Iron Age farm for a year. Underpinning these programmes
was a commitment to authenticity and the value of the experience. An edition of
science series Q.E.D. (1982-99) saw two couples trying out nuclear shelters for
ten days in 'The Underground Test' (tx. 30/07/1982). One couple stayed in an
expensive bunker with a ventilation system and even brought their cat, while the
other pair dug their shelter in a garden following government recommendations
and had to spend most of the time lying down due to their cramped conditions.
The use of video diaries and the comparison of different experiences in 'The
Underground Test' pointed towards the future of the format, in which direct
address and multiple narratives would be dominant features.
Channel Four's historical houses (The 1900 House, The 1940s House, 2001,
Edwardian Country House, 2001; and Regency House Party, 2004) combined features
from reality television with historical elements to explore more recent pasts by
confining participants to domestic routines from bygone eras. The Trench (BBC,
2002), Lad's Army (ITV, 2002) and That'll Teach Em (Channel 4 2003-06) took
similar approaches to institutions and applied strict regimes. The way in which
these series presented social histories made them informative and engaging, with
an emphasis on emotion that was often withheld by more formal historical
documentaries. By focusing on the details of daily life and putting them in a
wider historical context these experiments successfully presented history on
television in an original way.
Used as a framework for reinvigorating genres like history programming and
documentary, social experiments have proven to be extremely useful to programme
makers. Though constructing situations is not the traditional preserve of
documentaries, the opportunities afforded by placing participants in unusual
scenarios can provide genuine revelations. Producer Stephen Lambert's
progression from series editor of Modern Times (BBC, 1995-2001) and Real Life
(ITV, 1999-2005) to executive producer of Faking It (Channel 4, 2000-05) and
Wife Swap (Channel 4, 2003-06) can be seen as indicative of the changing nature
of television documentary as the popularity of reality television and the use of
social experiments grew. Faking It and Wife Swap pushed boundaries by regularly
featuring clashing personalities and cultures and having their participants work
their way to negotiation by the end of each episode.
As a playful attempt to explore the demands of different professions, In at
the Deep End (BBC, 1982-87) can be seen as a predecessor to Faking It, even
though it used the Nationwide format of having a presenter undergo the
challenge. Professional arenas were also explored in Back to the Floor (BBC,
1997-98) and Trading Places (ITV, 1997).
The psychology of social experiments has also featured as The Experiment
(2002) recreated the notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, and Boys Alone
(2002) and Girls Alone (2003) sought to observe pre-teens in artificial Lord of
the Flies scenarios. While these series went to some lengths to create
controlled environments for their experiments, the results proved highly
controversial, particularly given years of mounting suspicion over the ethics of
some reality formats.
Although the aim of the format is to observe how the human subjects behave,
the experiments have frequently been subverted by the participants, revealing
the rebelliousness of human nature and a desire to wrest control back from the
producers. The manifestation of these rebellions varies from withdrawing from
the experiment entirely to sneaking in contraband (Castaway 2000, The Trench) or
simply disobeying the rules (Wife Swap); but even these deviations from the
confines of the experiments only serve to provide further evidence about their
human subjects. At its best, social experiment television keenly observes
microcosmic communities and the power structures in relationships between
individuals. The exposure of these issues can be cringe-worthy and shocking as
well as emotional, but the urge to investigate ourselves anthropologically
continues.
Lisa Kerrigan
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