Thrill Seekers
By CBC
A TV crew offers 12 ordinary people the chance to take part in the adventure of a lifetime. But there’s a catch. The audience knows everything but the contestants are kept in the dark. As the cameras roll, no questions are allowed. Split Screen: Thrill Seekers is a new 6 part series that exposes how a TV show left contestants struggling to trust what’s actually real.
Host Nick van der Kolk (Love + Radio) asks: does reality TV only succeed when it exploits those involved? He talks to the set designers, crew, and the contestants themselves to learn what it took to permanently distort their sense of reality.
Welcome to Split Screen, an examination of the utterly captivating, sometimes unsettling world of entertainment and pop culture. From reality TV gone awry, to the cult of celebrity, each season of Split Screen takes listeners on an evocative journey inside the world of showbiz. Ex-contestants, producers, and cultural critics uncover complicated truths behind TV’s carefully curated facades, and question what our entertainment reveals about us. Split Screen: sometimes reality is twisted.
Latest episode
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Episode 6: Back to Earth
Space Cadets: where are they now? We learn how the contestants struggled to adapt to life after the show. We bring them together after 20 years, to finally reflect on how the show permanently warped their beliefs about the world around them. -
Episode 5: Spacewalk
Four cadets are sent to space and have a profound experience as they view the Earth from above. Back on the ground, producers scramble to find a satisfying end to the series, faced with a growing feeling that the reveal could be traumatic. -
Episode 4: Hoax TV
The reviews are rolling in, but they’re not what the crew were expecting. Psychologist Cynthia McVay examines whether the manipulations integral to reality TV can be ethical and asks if this show is too cruel for broadcast. Meanwhile, the cadets f… -
Episode 3: Behind The Curtain
Before the cadets begin auditioning, a production team is hired to make the show. They too were sworn to secrecy as they were challenged to tackle a job they didn’t even think was possible. The set designers create an intricate world in order… -
Episode 2: Star City
The contestants are flown to a Russian cosmonaut base and put through the most gruelling training of their lives in preparation for their mission. But as the training becomes more and more ridiculous, doubts begin to creep in. -
Episode 1: Are You a Thrill Seeker?
Would you go on a reality show if you didn’t know what it was about? Even if they promised you the adventure of a lifetime? In 2005, 12 people did just that. They answered an ad that read “Thrill Seekers wanted” and began auditioning for a show un… -
Audio Trailer | Split Screen: Thrill Seekers
This is the story behind a multi-million dollar media experiment that promised 12 ordinary people an adventure of a lifetime. But there was a catch: while the audience knew everything, the contestants had no idea what the adventure would be. Love … -
Introducing | Split Screen: Thrill Seekers
What if everything you believed about the world around you was a lie? In the early 2000s, a TV crew offered 12 ordinary people the chance to take part in the adventure of a lifetime. But there’s a catch: while the audience knows everything, the co… -
Split Screen: Kid Nation, Episode 6: Where are they now?
Negative portrayals left kids like Olivia traumatized whereas others, like Laurel and Anjay look back with fondness. How did being on the show affect the trajectory of the pioneers? And why does Kid Nation continue to strike a cultural chord? … -
Split Screen: Kid Nation, Episode 5: Anarch-Kids
After the chaos of the first few weeks life in Bonanza City stabilizes – but that doesn’t make for great TV. The former pioneers say that as the show wore on, the drama became more contrived, with plot-lines that saw kids portrayed as gambling add…
