All photos courtesy of channel 4. 

Hunted was a TV show that spanned over a few weeks on Channel 4. It follows 14 ‘fugitives’ trying to go on the run for 28 days from the world’s top investigators. These fugitives were ordinary people who have an hour to pack their stuff and go before the team comes after them. Some of these fugitives are in pairs while others are alone. All they have is a camera person with them and the stuff they can fit in a backpack. 

Spoilers ahead. 

These fugitives found many different ways to try to evade capture, from hitchhiking to biking around canals and even taking public buses it was obvious to see a pattern of who would do well and who wouldn’t. When you’re on the run it probably isn’t the best thing to go on buses when they are riddled with CCTV. 

At the beginning the fugitives are given a couple of hundred pounds on a new card to take out whenever they want but all cash machines have CCTV built in so doing so immediately gives away your location. The team are also able to hack into the friends of the fugitives mobile phones and track who may be calling them. 

One of my favourite fugitives was Ricky Allen. Ricky was a very calm, cool and deceiving character who even spent an afternoon creating an elaborate diversion to watch the hunters. Although he was incredibly clever he did become very cocky which equalled his downfall. 

This show definitely makes you question who you really should be rooting for. As these are ‘normal’ people you do end up rooting for them to get away with being on the run but if they were people who could cause the public harm maybe we shouldn’t be so excited to see how well they do. 

 
This show is incredibly clever and exciting. It draws you in and makes you think about you would do in the same situation. Learning of the different ways people try to stay hidden is very intriguing and it also makes you ask yourself whether you would help a fugitive or not. Of course the public’s view is quite distorted in this show with the added value of them not actually a harm to the public and the camera person that any normal fugitive wouldn’t have. The public, to me, seemed very lenient to help them, even whole families would happily take in a total stranger. 

This show also makes you look at the team trying to find them. Obviously it’s an incredibly hard task and the team didn’t catch all the fugitives but is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do we expect this team to catch all of them? Does this make us worry about our own safety from people who have actually had time to plan their escape and how they will go about it? In my opinion I would have liked to see the team catch all the fugitives as it would give me solice in knowing that I am safe living in this country but at the same time, with it being so exciting to watch them get away, I did hope that the fugitives would get away with it. 

What did you think? Do you think the team after them could have done more? And what would be your escape plan? 

Until next time. 

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding