First Review: I Shouldn’t Be Alive

Re-enacted documentaries and dramas are not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, and I have at least one foot in that camp.

Sometimes there are exceptions that keep me from putting two in. The movie Touching the Void was one such occasion. So it’s encouraging to see that the creatives behind that amazing movie are also the producers of I Shouldn’t Be Alive.

The first episode “Lost in the Snow” is the true story of an American couple who were driving cross-country when a blizzard sent them off the main road and into a vast and desolate national park.

The documentary shows actors enacting the incidents as described by the real-life narrators. Therefore we know the outcome is going to be largely positive. The real interest therefore is in creating extreme situations and dramatic turning points. These producers are very skilled at achieving such.

The couple had a 4 month old baby with them at the time, raising the stakes given the lack of shelter, warmth, food and water.

What they went through was excruciating, and if this genre appeals to you, you should be suitably hooked for the hour.

I Shouldn’t Be Alive airs 7:30pm Tuesday April 3 on Nine.

Note: Nine will re-voice this American-made series with Charles Woolley narration, which may make it feel a bit like an extended 60 Minutes item. Not sure why they felt it necessary.

For Foxtel viewers, the series is already screening on the Discovery Channel.

Press Release:

I Shouldn’t Be Alive, a thrilling new series with terrifying, true stories of human endurance and the will to survive – narrated by Charles Wooley, premieres on Nine on Tuesday, April 3 at 7.30pm.

I Shouldn’t Be Alive tells the amazing stories of people who cheat death when caught in extraordinary, unforeseen situations. It combines dramatic reconstructions with the personal testimony of survivors to capture the full horror of their harrowing experience.

We meet people who have survived being trapped under a boulder in a riverbed with water levels rising; travellers lost in the Amazon jungle and stranded in a snowstorm; others captured by murderous Khmer Rouge guerrillas; and passengers on a plane that spirals out of control and crashes into the African wilderness.

From professional adventurers and extreme sports enthusiasts to ordinary people, each episode reveals true stories of survival, focusing on moral dilemmas, chance events and the important decisions that kept them alive.

The first episode tells the gruelling story of survivors James Stolpa, a US Army private, and his wife Jennifer. While driving to a family funeral with their four-month-old son they are caught in a blizzard, and a wrong turn leads them deep into frozen wilderness. This young family have to confront the real possibility that they are not going to survive. Should the father say goodbye to his wife and baby and try to make it out alone? Or should they stay together as a family – and live or die with each other?

I Shouldn’t Be Alive, a gripping and inspirational series that captures the power of the human will to survive, comes from the producers of the multi-award-winning documentary film, Touching the Void (Darlow Smithson Productions).