Why So Many Fans Had A Big Problem With Season 4 Of Alone
History's hit TV series "Alone", where a group of outdoor experts is dropped into the wild with the task of surviving off the land by themselves as long as possible, has been quite successful for the network. The show has already produced 10 seasons and is streaming on multiple services. However, while most seasons of "Alone" received good ratings, the one that didn't do as well as the others was Season 4. In fact, Season 4 currently has both the lowest average season rating and the two lowest-rated episodes, per Rating Graph. So, what went wrong with this season in particular? As it turns out, the show's producers changed the premise of the show too much for the viewers' taste.
Most people who enjoy "Alone" like to watch the show not only to learn about survival skills but also to see how the contestants match up to the mental battle of being completely isolated in a remote location. However, for Season 4, the show producers made the interesting choice of having the contestants work in pairs. While each contestant was dropped by themselves in the wilderness at first, they were then tasked with finding their partner and then surviving together for as long as possible. Since the new premise didn't particularly fit with the title of the show, quite a few fans were rubbed the wrong way.
What fans had to say about Alone Season 4
This change in the entire premise of the show was met with plenty of online backlash. In fact, on the "Alone" forum of Reddit, one frustrated viewer took to the page after watching the first few episodes to ask if Season 4 ever got better or was just bad all the way through. In the comments, the general consensus was that while the season was a little boring, it did get more interesting after the pairs found each other and started building a shelter and doing typical survival things. As one commenter put it, Season 4 despite getting more entertaining towards the end, "still won't even come close to the better seasons."
However, there were a few viewers who enjoyed the change in premise simply because it provided something new. As another Redditor explained, it was "the dynamics between two people and how they meet opportunities and adversities" that made the season exciting. They also enjoyed the chance to see different teams accidentally meet and interact, which never happened in other seasons of the show.
That being said, numbers don't lie and History seems to have realized that the changes made during Season 4 were bad for ratings. Since the work-in-pairs season, all following seasons went back to the original format.
The winning team wasn't very popular
While the premise of Season 4 of "Alone" wasn't received well from the beginning, the nail in the coffin may have been that the winners weren't popular with viewers. While some fans liked the pair, others were annoyed by the constant bickering and arguing between the two brothers, Ted and Jim Baird, who won in the end. According to one Redditor, it almost didn't feel right for the brothers to win seeing as they "did almost nothing right" and "weren't craftsmen by any means."
However, as others pointed out, "Alone" doesn't necessarily test for who is the best craftsman, but rather, for who has the most grit to outlast the others and who can starve the best for the longest. Ted and Jim Baird outlasted all the other teams fair and square, surviving mostly by eating slugs and foraging. While they didn't necessarily have a great shelter or excel at cooperating, they were still the toughest team of the season and had the mental strength to last 75 days through fall and winter on a remote island in Vancouver — kind of.