Chaos, drama and unexpected twists are the meat and potatoes for any reality TV production. Skating on the edge of controversy and pushing humans to their physical, mental and emotional limits is par for the course. 

But producers of the latest Australian season of Alone feared they may have overstepped the mark when a contestant went completely off the radar after 26 days fending for himself in the woods of northern Finland. 

Afghanistan-born wrecking-yard worker and taekwondo champion Arash, 32, had been living in the Sapmi region – an area inhabited by brown bears and grey wolves – when he vanished from his camp, leaving behind the GPS tracker and emergency phone he was supposed to carry at all times, as well as his camera equipment. 

Following a large-scale search involving checking waterways, the production team eventually found Arash six or seven hours after realising he was missing. Executive producer Riima Daher later admitted to The Age there were some hairy moments where they “started to fear the worst”, not knowing where he was.

“It was the most scared I’ve ever been personally or professionally,” Daher said. 

Following his rescue, Arash, a former refugee who grew up in a warzone, said in the episode he “had a brain snap”. 

“I crossed seven countries with no documents,” he said as he was being extracted by boat. “I’ve been lost in the sea, slept in the jungle, and I think this experience activated a survival mode that I know the best.

“When I get in that mode, the rules do not matter. I only rely on myself. All I was thinking was just to survive.”

While the experience may have had producers of Alone Australia questioning their choices, it’s far from the first (and unlikely to be the last) example of things going awry on reality TV. From political protests, meltdowns, questionable concepts, to contestants actually dying – here are some of the more shocking and unexpected turns of events we’ve witnessed on our screens in Australia and around the world – all in the name of entertainment. 

The Bachelor who stayed a bachelor

In the 2018 season of The Bachelor, after spending several weeks dating more than 20 women, Nick ‘Honeybadger’ Cummins finally narrowed his preferences down to two lovely ladies, each having declared they were “falling in love” with him (and his moustache).

Following the cursory final romantic dates, introductions to the potential in-laws, and some very intense, dramatic music, the Honeybadger declared his love for … neither woman. Despite the concept of the show being to “find love”, he told the two finalists his head was too cloudy and couldn’t give himself 100 per cent to either. 

Nick Cummins with finalist Sophie Tieman on The Bachelor’s in 2018. Nick ultimately chose not to pursue a relationship with anyone from the show.

When the term ‘turkey slap’ entered the parlance

Prior to this moment in 2006, many happily naive Australians lived their lives satisfied that a turkey slap had something to do with a dispute in the poultry yard.

Thanks to the educational virtues of Big Brother, our understanding was suddenly realigned after two male contestants were accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour towards female housemate Camilla Severi (now Camilla Halliwell).

The incident, broadcast on the show’s live internet feed, saw Michael “Ashley” Cox hold Halliwell down while Michael “John” Bric allegedly rubbed his crotch in her face – an act that quickly became known as the “turkey slap”. Both men were booted from the house, police investigated, and then-prime minister John Howard weighed in, calling for the show to be taken off air.

The survival expert who almost didn’t survive

Former SAS soldier Bear Grylls has been shocking viewers with his daring feats of survival since his Man vs Wild series launched in 2006.

We’ve seen him drink his own urine from a hollowed out rattlesnake that he’d earlier killed and eaten, take shelter from a sandstorm inside the carcass of a dead camel, and swim under an 18 foot ice sheet.

While Grylls has encountered some of the world’s largest and fearsome creatures, including grizzly bears, crocodiles and boa constrictors, it was one of nature’s smallest threats that reportedly almost took him out.

While filming Treasure Island with Bear Grylls in 2019, Grylls went into anaphylactic shock and nearly died when he was stung by a bee guarding its honey. His throat began to close, his breathing became shallow and he collapsed before medics were able to administer an EpiPen to stop him from slipping into full shutdown. 

Survival expert Bear Grylls almost met his match when he was stung by a bee and suffered an anaphylactic reaction.

Celebrity bitten multiple times by a snake

Someone getting bitten after you’ve put their head inside a small box filled with multiple snakes might not seem like an unexpected outcome.

Nonetheless, actress and TV personality Toni Pearen, along with viewers and hosts of season seven of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, were shocked when non-venomous carpet snakes repeatedly struck her on the face. 

The challenge that turned deadly

In August 2009, 32-year-old father-of-four Saad Khan was competing on the Pakistani reality show Clear Men, filmed in Thailand, when a challenge went catastrophically wrong.

Khan was required to cross a lake carrying a seven-kilogram backpack when he began struggling and called out for help. Fellow contestants and crew rushed into the murky water but were unable to find him. Divers later recovered his body.

Big Brother watches as contestant goes off-script

In a move that caught audiences – and no doubt Big Brother Australia producers – off guard, Merlin Luck hijacked his live eviction in 2004 to stage a silent protest in solidarity with asylum seekers held under Australia’s mandatory detention policy.

After being evicted on day 43, Luck joined host Gretel Killeen for the obligatory post-elimination interview, only to remain silent with black tape across his mouth and holding up a homemade sign reading “Free th[e] refugees”. After Killeen’s repeated attempts to get him to speak failed, he was whisked offstage.

With Big Brother then in its heyday – averaging around one million viewers an episode – the unscripted political statement became a national talking point.

Survivor contestant who fell in the fire

In Survivor: The Australian Outback in 2001, contestant Michael Skupin passed out and fell hands-first into the campfire. He suffered serious burns and had to be evacuated by helicopter — the first medical evacuation in the US show’s history.

Skupin had previously stirred controversy on the series when he stabbed a wild pig and butchered it.