BBC warns 'extreme reality TV' stars

REAL...REALLY? The 13 contestants of Castaway will face immense physical and emotional challenges, claims BBC.

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New Delhi: BBC’s reality television programme Castaway has returned seven-years after the first series was broadcast. It is being billed by the BBC as the most extreme and challenging TV reality show ever broadcast, reports The Daily Mail.

There are dire warnings that, for the next three months, the 13 contestants of Castaway will face immense physical and emotional challenges as they are cut off from the modern world on a remote New Zealand island.

The BBC cautions that there is 'no local pub and, sorry, no curry house' on the island. Shelter, food and water are limited and there are no beds available. The sanitary conditions are best left unmentioned, said The Daily Mail.

According to Producer Jeremy Mills, the island gives an initial sense of luxury.

However, he said, “they (participants) won’t know what’s hit them. There’s no electricity, plumbing or running water – and they’ll have just one match to light a fire.

"We’re only giving them Second World War standard rations, so they’ll have to fish to eat well,” Jeremy told The Daily Mail.

But defying all the scary warnings, a team of journalists visited the Great

Barrier island which is just miles away from where the castaways have set up their camp. Far from finding a hostile and inhospitable land, they discovered a thriving community - and an elaborate TV con trick.

Served by two international airlines, the island is just a 30-minute flight from Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. Even more surprisingly, the bay is home to a bustling tourist campsite.

The news daily says that there is a nice place offering Thai curries - and owners have offered special meals for the Castaway stars at any time of the day or night.

The island where the first series of Castaway was hosted seven-years ago was genuinely uninhabited, states the news daily. The participants were forced to live an essentially self-sufficient life. This year's contestants will also build their own shelters, grow and collect their own food and will have to cope with high winds and torrential rain.

With excerpts from the The Daily Mail