New Discovery Series
"I Shouldn't Be Alive"
CHRONICLES IN GRIPPING DETAIL THE VERY BEST
TRUE SURVIVAL STORIES THAT HINGE ON MORAL DILEMMAS
—The Series, Which Depicts Survivors’ Extraordinary Perseverance in
Gasp-Filled Adventures Worldwide, Debuts This November —
Upcoming Episodes
Q & A with John Smithson, Producer
SILVER SPRING, Md.— Discovery Channel has partnered with Darlow Smithson Productions, the award-winning company behind the critically acclaimed Touching the Void.
In 10 one-hour episodes that canvas the globe, I SHOULDN’T BE ALIVE pushes the limits as survivors of death-defying ordeals relive their wrenching experiences at the edge of human limits— and the moment of truth that kept them alive. The series is slated to premiere in November 2005.
Why does one person live against all the odds and another die? Darlow Smithson Productions brought the true, perilous journey of two climbers in the Peruvian Andes to the screen in Touching the Void.
The groundbreaking I SHOULDN’T BE ALIVE taps a similar vein, incorporating striking visuals to tell engrossing stories of human survival. The program explores our most basic human instincts while revealing amazing intricacies and profound depths of the human condition.
Each one-hour episode fields the very best true stories of survival focusing on the moral dilemmas, crucial moments, chance events and life-or-death decisions of the survivors. All the while, viewers will feel the power and magnitude of those decisions, and be moved to ask themselves, “Do I have what it takes to have survived in the same situation?”
Each episode narrates a unique and exceptional feat of survival – some from the world of professional adventurers and extreme sports — men and women who deliberately invite danger. But others find ordinary people caught in terrible ordeals and fighting for their lives. The stories are told in the present tense — in chilling, high-
caliber dramatizations — from the perspective of the survivors. At the heart of each episode, an agonizing moment reveals key choices that must be made to allow the survivors to cheat death and live to tell their story.
Upcoming episodes include Escape from the Amazon, in which three friends embark on the adventure of a lifetime but then must take unparalleled risks when their journey turns divisive and ominous. Initially out to explore the headwaters of the Amazon, the three entrust their lives to a guide who claims to be an expert in the area, but who soon leads them all into jeopardy… and one of them never to be heard from again.
In the episode Soldier in the Snow, a U.S. army private is en route — with his wife and their five-month old son — to a funeral, when a huge snowstorm lands them in barren and frozen wilderness. In this sparsely populated area, the soldier realizes no one will find them. With his family stranded, starving and injured, he must decide to leave his wife and baby to track down help. But is there actually any help to be found?
Shipwrecked Sailors follows a crew set to sail from Maine to deliver a yacht in Florida. When a violent swarm sweeps in, the five-member crew must take refuge in a life raft… bickering, some injured, and with no food or water. So, who among the five will survive, and who among them is the strongest to make fateful choices?
Discovery Channel is the United States’ largest cable television network, serving 90.2 million households across the nation with the finest in informative entertainment.
Discovery Networks, U.S., a unit of Discovery Communications, Inc., operates and manages Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, Discovery Health Channel, Discovery HD Theater, Discovery Kids Channel, Discovery Times Channel, The Science Channel, Discovery Home Channel, Military Channel, Discovery en Español and FitTV. The unit also distributes BBC AMERICA.