Hunted (2015 TV series)

Description

A group of every day civilians, known as Fugitives, are willingly sent on the run from a team of former police and intelligence professionals, known as hunters, for 28 days.

Where possible the Hunters try to use the same methods of surveillance employed by the state, including open source intelligence, cyber expertise and interrogating friends and family. When the Hunters did not legally have access to those powers, such as CCTV and ANPR the powers have been replicated for the show.

Series 1

14 civilian contestants (billed as "fugitives" during the show's run) attempted to avoid a team of former police and intelligence officers for 28 days armed with replicated powers of the state. During their time on the run the Fugitives are not allowed to leave the UK mainland and give permission to be tracked as if the state was tracking them using methods that the state may use, such as monitoring of phones, houses searched, analysing of electrical equipment etc. Each fugitive was also given a bank account containing £450.

The contestants still at large on Day 28 were required to meet at a secret 'extraction point', Fairoaks Airport in Surrey.

The series was filmed between 4 May 2015 and 31 May 2015.

Hunters

The team of 30 specialists include former and serving police and intelligence personnel, an ex CIA agent as well as cyber intelligence experts who used the fugitives online footprints to research and hunt them. The team has access to replicated powers of the state, including CCTV and ANPR. Before starting, all the Fugitives gave permission to be tracked in the same way the state might track a fugitive - their cash cards and phones were monitored, their houses searched and their friends and family questioned. The Hunters also use media campaigns to recruit the general public into helping them, offering financial incentives. The team is split into two parts: a team in the Hunted HQ to gather Intelligence which they then distribute to field teams.

In the field there are a number of teams.

Series 2

The programme returned on 22 September 2016 for a six-episode second series. Filmed in May 2016, ten new Fugitives went on the run leaving from a location in Birmingham for a chance to win a share of a prize of £100,000 if they go without being captured. Similar to series one, the Fugitives could take with them anything they were able to carry, they were given a bank account with £250 and told not to leave mainland UK. Each Fugitive had with them an embedded camera operator to capture their every move from that moment onwards. 30 minutes after they are sent off, the team of Hunters were given their full details along with the aerial footage of the "escape".

The contestants still at large on Day 28 needed to reach a secret 'extraction point' on the River Thames at the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

Fugitives

10 Fugitives went on the run for 28 days with a chance to share a prize of £100,000.

Hunters

This series saw a slightly larger team as the Hunters with the addition of an Investigative Psychologist and another former member of British Intelligence. The Hunters also were equipped with sniffer dogs, helicopters and drones. As well as the replicated powers of the state, including CCTV and ANPR from series 1.

The information assurance company, NCC Group, provide the Cyber Expertise for the show.

Series 3

Series 3 will start filming in May 2017.

Production

Each Fugitive was filmed by a dedicated camera person who followed the Fugitives wherever they went. While filming, the production team were split so that the team working with the Hunters were separate from the team working with the Fugitives to prevent information passing between the groups and to provide a more realistic experience. During production there were over 800 Freedom of Information requests submitted to find the location of state owned CCTV cameras positioned throughout the UK mainland. When real footage couldn’t be obtained, Channel 4 owned cameras captured footage which would have been available to the state and it was stored on a central database for the Hunters to access if they wished. However, they had to "officially" request the information as if it was a real fugitive hunt. The Hunters were overseen by an independent adjudicator, former Head of Covert Operations for the Metropolitan Police, Kevin O’Leary, whose job was to make sure that the information requested and gathered by the Hunters reflected the information that would be available to them in real life and within the appropriate time frame. He was the only person who had the power to release information to the Hunters and would only do so when he considered that the Hunters had done sufficient detective work to justify the access to the information.

Critical reception

The Telegraph review complimented the series, saying the "game show element was very effective, playing with our instinctive tendency to take the side of the pursued, and skilfully edited to keep the tension high." The Daily Mirror's Adam Postan described the series as "the biggest TV joke of the year", pointing out that most of the surveillance powers were replicated by methods that were unexplained.

International versions

In US, the show is produced by Endemol Shine North America under the same title Hunted, which premiered on 22 January 2017 on CBS.

In Spain the show is produced by Movistar+ in collaboration with Shine Iberia under the title La huida ("The escape"), which premiered on 8 April 2016 on #0.

In Denmark the show is produced by Metronome Productions A/S under the title Menneskejagt, which premiered on 24 August 2016 on DR3.

In Russia the show is produced by WeiT Media under the title Охота ("The Hunt"), which premiered on 17 September 2016 on free-to-air network NTV.

In Netherlands the show is produced by Simpel Media commissioned by AVROTROS under the same title Hunted, which premiered on 17 October 2016 on NPO3.