From the Independent:

Endemol, the company behind ‘Big Brother’, is pulling out all the stops for its new Channel 4 production. In it, contestants vie to fly to space. The snag? They will be grounded at a military base, victims of probably the biggest hoax ever attempted on TV.

For 10 days, the channel will televise the contestants as they undergo intensive training in Russia, before being flown 100km (62 miles)above the Earth into near space. Here they will spend five days orbiting the Earth and conducting experiments. Or so they think.

In reality, the nine - joined by three actors whom they believe to be fellow contestants - will be at a disused military base somewhere in the UK and will never leave the ground. The whole process will be filmed live in an unprecedented television event presented by Johnny Vaughan.

It turns out that the participants were selected on the basis of their suggestibility (i.e., “stupidity”). Showing that they have a sense of humor, the show is called “Space Cadet” (as in someone disjointed from reality).

At the start of their journey, the contestants will take off in an aeroplane apparently bound for Russia. In fact, they will fly in circles over the North Sea for around four hours before landing at the former British military establishment.

I guess it could be described as “Joe Millionaire” meets “Lost in Space.”

Oh those wacky reality TV producers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2005 at 6:44 pm by Insider and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.