Reality TV has hit a new and disturbingly graphic low with ‘The Program,' a television series in which a purposely chosen ninth-grade class is forced to fight to the death on a remote island. With only minimal survival gear and a random weapon, each student must survive and kill their friends until only one winner remains; if the group refuses to play, all of its members are killed by the electronic collars around their necks. Girlfriends and boyfriends betray each other, friends are brutally slain by their closest companions and alliances are made and broken. On screen for the world to see, only the strongest will survive this horrific, sadistic game...
In a location outside of the real world, people are contestants in a blood-soaked game of death, where only one may stand alive among the corpses of the fallen dead. Both series deal with the death game genre in both it's forms of psychological and physical violence, where trust is a rare commodity compared to blood.