Hunted viewers slam – Michmutters
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Hunted Australia finale: Stathi and Rob win the $100,000

The first season of Ten’s new reality game show hunted came to a close on Tuesday night, with contestants Stathi and Rob taking out a double win – earning half each of the game’s $100,000 prize money.

Speaking to news.com.au today, the two players opened up about their time on the show, revealing that life on the run was even harder than it appeared to viewers, with some key scenes not making the edit.

Namely, the apparent willingness of members of the general public to help panicked contestants, sometimes dressed in bizarre disguises and always trailed by camera operators, as they approached and announced: “I’M A FUGITIVE ON THE RUN, CAN YOU HELP ME?”
Time and again, complete strangers were shown on-screen leaping into action, housing, transporting and feeding the fugitives – but the winners explained they actually experienced very little kindness from those they approached.

“Not a single person wanted to help you, when you’re out on the streets looking for help,” said Rob. “People would just look at you. You’d think that having a camera with you would help, but it didn’t.”

Rob estimated that around “90% of people” he and team mate Jake approached on the run would “tell us to piss off” – starting from their first minutes in the game, when they needed to find a phone to make their first call.

“From the moment we got out at Federation Square, (hunted) didn’t show the 30 or so people who said no to letting us use their phones,” he explained.

Stathi said begging a largely indifferent public for help quickly became one of the hardest elements of his 21 days as a fugitive.

“That rejection… it makes you doubt yourself and gets you into that paranoid mindset, which is exactly what you don’t need when you’re on the run,” he said.

How the finale played out

Three contestants were left in the game heading into Tuesday’s season finale: friends Jake and Rob, and Stathi, who lost his buddy and team mate Matt during Monday’s episode.

All three had to phone Hunted HQ 24 hours before the 21 days were up to be told the game’s ‘extraction point’ in Inverloch, on Victoria’s south eastern coast.

As soon as they called, their exact location was disclosed to the Hunters – yet another advantage for the Hunters, and one that some viewers decried as unfair.

Policeman Jake was soon tracked down to the address he was staying, leading to a dramatic foot race between he and two Hunters, who eventually captured him.

It was left to make-up artist Rob and humanitarian worker Stathi to make their way to the extraction point: a helicopter that had landed on the beach in Inverloch.

Both did so as stealthily as possible, with Stathi blending in with some local hikers as he made the approach along a coastal track, while Rob raced straight into the chopper from the car that had just dropped him off.

Both made it into the chopper with minutes to spare and with Hunters hot on their tail – making them the joint winners of huntedseason one.

Rob and Stathi revealed to news.com.au today that their helicopter rendevzous was the first time they’d properly met and been able to have a conversation – and Rob did joke that, as first to the chopper, he was tempted to ask the pilot to leave when he saw Stathi approaching.

Both players vowed to share their split of the $100,000 prize money with their fallen team mates, meaning both winners will go home with $25,000 for their 21 days on the run.

It’s a small prize, compared to the megabucks awarded to winners on other Ten reality shows like Australian Survivor ($500,000) and Amazing Race Australia ($250,000).

Truth about those drag disguises

Monday’s penultimate episode of the season saw Jake and Rob don elaborate drag disguises to evade detection from the Hunters – a tactic Rob employed again for the finale (although this time, the Hunters clocked his real identity on CCTV).

Rob said it wasn’t any easy move to make, admitting he was “terrified” the first time he stepped out in public in drag.

“It was a huge, huge thing to do. I had this sense of nerves, going out in public like that… I also didn’t want to misrepresent anyone either, dressed as a woman.”

Hairdresser Rob dressed himself and policeman Jake in wigs, make-up, breast plates and even facial prosthetics to transform into women for a visit to a local pub, where they successfully convinced members of the public to take them in for the night.

It was far and away the most elaborate disguise in a season that saw contestants try to go undercover in an array of cheap wigs, op shop dresses and in one occasion, even a nun’s habit. Then there was Stathi’s infamous “nonna” disguise – or, as he put it to news.com.au, “K Mart drag.”

602,000 viewers across the five metro capitals tuned in to the climax of last night’s finale – a respectable end for a season that opened three weeks ago to an audience of 619,000, then rose to a season high of 711,000 viewers for episode two.

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Entertainment

Hunted stars Jake and Rob don drag disguises | Photos

Fans of Ten’s cat-and-mouse reality game show Hunted could have been forgiven for thinking they were watching Drag Race Down Under during Monday’s episode, as the four remaining fugitives all leaned heavily on drag to try to evade the Hunters.

After a season of contestants donning dodgy wigs and op shop dresses, leave it to friends Jake and Rob – who’ve been running rings around the Hunters since the start of the game – to bring some truly unrecognizable disguises.

Rob, a hairdresser and make-up artist, got he and police officer Jake into very convincing drag for their next outing, knowing that stepping out in public as themselves was just too risky.

Their mission: To go to a local pub and befriend some strangers, who would hopefully take them in separately for the night as they went their separate ways for the final stage of the game.

And Rob had come prepared, putting them both in wigs, make-up, breast plates and even facial prosthetics:

Cut to Jake and Rob in full drag, blending in very well as they sipped cocktails with a group of girls at a Footscray pub – one of whom announced, “You can come stay with us if you like.”

One complaint – hunted brushed over this undercover operation, showing us barely more than 30 seconds of Jake and Rob in drag at the pub before we skipped to the next scene.

It raised a lot of questions: How exactly did two large men in drag convince some strangers at the pub to let them crash? Release the extended pub scene, Have!

Also relying on the power of drag were contestants Stathi and Matt, who had fled to Daylesford’s LGBTI ChillOut Festival with a plan to meet a drag queen friend who would get them frocked up so they could move around the town in disguise.

Unfortunately, the Hunters intercepted their meeting (perhaps meeting a large, purple-wigged drag queen at the local pub wasn’t the best plan to evade detection), capturing Matt and leaving an emotional Stathi on the run by himself.

That means just Stathi, Rob and Jake are left in the game as the show heads towards tonight’s finale – will all, or indeed any, of them make it to the ‘extraction point’ and share in the $100,000 winnings?

Hunted concludes 7.30pm tonight on Ten.

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Entertainment

Hunted viewers smoke over ‘wildly unfair’ twist

With just two more episodes to go this season, the investigative team on Ten’s hit reality show Hunted is going to extreme lengths to try to capture the last remaining fugitives in the game.

But some measures taken in Sunday night’s episode didn’t go down well with viewers, who accused the Hunters of playing dirty.

Sunday’s episode focused heavily on Bondi couple Lavinia and Nick, who had lasted two weeks in the game without detection because they had largely remained off-grid.

The couple had been staying at remote campsites, not contacting friends or family, and had not touched the bank card given to them at the start of the game to access any of the funds contestants were given to survive.

But they were getting tired, hungry and desperate, so decided to head into a nearby town to grab some money from an ATM.

At the same time the Hunters, frustrated by their lack of leads, decided to freeze the couple’s ATM card. Cut to “CCTV” footage from the ATM, as Lavinia tried and tried to get some money out, only to be told her card wouldn’t work. The Hunters cheered and laughed as she struggled to work out why one of their few lifelines in the game could be taken away before they’d even used it.

Elsewhere in Sunday’s episode, the heavy-handed tactics of the hunted ground crew continued to have viewers siding with the fugitives and those helping to hide them.

Friends Puneet and Kris dropped by the remote country property of one of their contacts, but soon sensed that the Hunters might have been on to them and quickly fled.

Their intuition proved correct: Two Hunters weren’t far behind, and told property owner Graham and his wife – who looked visibly rattled at the intrusion – that it was “in their best interests” to tell them the truth, while filming them with their phones, searching the property and demanding information.

In the end, the hunted team managed to capture three more fugitives last night: teammates Puneet and Kris, as well as Nick, leaving his fiance Lavinia on the run by herself with no money.

That leaves only two complete teams in the race for the $100,000 prize money: Stathi and Matt, and Jake and Rob, two pairs of friends who have both gone to extreme lengths to evade detection, with elaborate disguises and undercover aliases.

The penultimate episode of hunted airs on Ten at 7.30pm tonight, before Tuesday night’s season finale.

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Categories
Entertainment

Hunted viewers smoke over ‘wildly unfair’ twist

With just two more episodes to go this season, the investigative team on Ten’s hit reality show Hunted is going to extreme lengths to try to capture the last remaining fugitives in the game.

But some measures taken in Sunday night’s episode didn’t go down well with viewers, who accused the Hunters of playing dirty.

Sunday’s episode focused heavily on Bondi couple Lavinia and Nick, who had lasted two weeks in the game without detection because they had largely remained off-grid.

The couple had been staying at remote campsites, not contacting friends or family, and had not touched the bank card given to them at the start of the game to access any of the funds contestants were given to survive.

But they were getting tired, hungry and desperate, so decided to head into a nearby town to grab some money from an ATM.

At the same time the Hunters, frustrated by their lack of leads, decided to freeze the couple’s ATM card. Cut to “CCTV” footage from the ATM, as Lavinia tried and tried to get some money out, only to be told her card wouldn’t work. The Hunters cheered and laughed as she struggled to work out why one of their few lifelines in the game could be taken away before they’d even used it.

Elsewhere in Sunday’s episode, the heavy-handed tactics of the hunted ground crew continued to have viewers siding with the fugitives and those helping to hide them.

Friends Puneet and Kris dropped by the remote country property of one of their contacts, but soon sensed that the Hunters might have been on to them and quickly fled.

Their intuition proved correct: Two Hunters weren’t far behind, and told property owner Graham and his wife – who looked visibly rattled at the intrusion – that it was “in their best interests” to tell them the truth, while filming them with their phones, searching the property and demanding information.

In the end, the hunted team managed to capture three more fugitives last night: teammates Puneet and Kris, as well as Nick, leaving his fiance Lavinia on the run by herself with no money.

That leaves only two complete teams in the race for the $100,000 prize money: Stathi and Matt, and Jake and Rob, two pairs of friends who have both gone to extreme lengths to evade detection, with elaborate disguises and undercover aliases.

The penultimate episode of hunted airs on Ten at 7.30pm tonight, before Tuesday night’s season finale.

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