Original subtitles

We are on the edge of a global catastrophic disaster.

Human conflict.

Nuclear bombs.

Natural disasters.

Chemical and biological warfare.

Without warning, the world as we know it can come to an end.

NARRATOR: It's the near future.

A viral outbreak

Decimates the world's population.

Your home...

Your workplace...

Your friends and family...

gone.

Los Angeles is one of many cities left devastated.

Infrastructure breaks down.

Chaos reigns.

This is the setting of the colony.

The colony is a controlled experiment

to see if 10 strangers can rebuild society

in the wake of a global catastrophe.

The backgrounds and expertise of these 10 volunteers

represent a cross-section of modern society.

For 10 weeks, they'll be isolated,

with no electricity from the grid,

no running water,

and no communication with the outside world.

All they'll have to work with are their skills,

the tools and supplies inside an abandoned factory,

and whatever they can scavenge

at a handful of cordoned-off locations.

As part of the experiment,

an outside gang of looters and thugs

will challenge the colonists' resources and security.

Throw him out! Get him out!

The world of the colony has been designed

using elements from both historical disasters

and models of what the future would look like

after a global viral outbreak.

Throughout the series,

a group of experts will put the colonists' challenges

in the context of these real-world disasters.

The volunteers at the colony have an amazing opportunity

to teach all of us

how to survive after major disaster strikes.

The experiment begins now.

The volunteers' journey begins with a shock to the system.

To simulate the stress

experienced in the aftermath of a disaster,

they're kept awake for 30 hours with almost no food or water.

We're all exhausted.

We're all beat. We're all hungry.

Mentally drained, they're then given 15 minutes

inside an abandoned department store

to scavenge whatever they can carry.

I'm finding a whole bunch of ramen up here, guys!

You guys clear?

After only 10 minutes, marauders and looters are sent in

to steal the volunteers' supplies.

Hey!

You're done!

You're done, man. You're done.

Let's go! Let's go!

We got a week here. I think we got just a week.

We'll make do for now. We'll find something else later.

The final phase before arriving at the colony

is lugging the 200 pounds of looted supplies

8 miles down the los angeles river.

Now for the next 10 weeks, they're on their own.

In an experiment of this scale and detail,

the constructed world can actually become the real world

for the people living in it,

and they begin to internalize the experience,

because they realize that there is a certain reality

and the potential and possible destruction

of what's familiar and what's known to them.

We went across the bridge.

I'll never forget that scene...

not seeing a single living thing.

After a disaster,

one of your first priorities is going to be shelter.

You need a safe place to stay

from the elements and from hostile forces.

If you can find a place to stay

that has some basic resources inside,

you're well on your way to rebuilding what was lost.

You know, my heart leapt.

You know, i thought, "sanctuary. That sounds great."

And then my first reaction was, "could be a trap."

Here.

Looks okay. It looks okay.

We ought to pull that shut.

We don't have the key.

The sanctuary is an 80,000-square-foot warehouse

on a 3-1/2-acre plot of land.

My god.

Thanks.

Wow.

Oh, my god.

Old manufacturing plant for something. It's huge.

Oh, my god.

The volunteers finally arrive at their home

for the next 10 weeks... an abandoned factory

supplied with rudimentary materials and tools

and a small amount of food and water.

Use of these supplies is entirely up to the colonists.

It's a large, old warehouse.

There's a large yard, a large area to work.

There's a few old cars. There's an old boat.

You know, actually, that makes you think

that someone has been here and has been here recently.

Man, we got all kinds of stuff.

Metal to play with.

I'm Morgan, and i am an aerospace engineer.

I never really thought about the end of the world.

But in the back of my own mind, i always kind of thought,

if it came down to it, i could survive.

I definitely would consider what I'm about to do

a challenging experience.

That's the big room.

We're not even in the big room yet.

You sure nobody lives here?

So, i walk in e main room.

I see tools. I see cars.

I see a lot of things that we can use.

It was really a blessing.

Has anyone tried to light this place?

Where's the switch? Nothing.

Whoa, flashlight... working flashlight.

Oh, yeah!

I think we found a bathroom. No water.

There's no way this was gonna have water in it. All right, all right.

It's power storage, kids.

We can literally power this entire place.

Propane tank.

My name is John,

and I'm an electrical engineer for ibm.

The stuff that i know how to do with computers and electronics,

is there a place for that in this new world?

You guys, we found a first-aid kit.

I am an emergency room nurse, and no matter what,

when it comes down to disaster or anything,

i have to go, and i have to help everybody else.

Inverter! A.c. Inverter! Tools!

This little machine converts 12 volts to 120.

All right, kids,

the last place we haven't looked is up there.

There's a big, old catwalk all the way around.

There's food up here, guys.

People are living here, or were living here.

Yeah, my name is michael.

I think I'm gonna be

the handyman, go-to guy for the group.

I equal two people when i work,

so i always bite off more than i can chew,

but i still get it done.

Discovering the warehouse

will be an ongoing process for the next 10 weeks.

The colonists have food and shelter,

but one basic is in short supply.

Well, first things first.

We need to have a group go down to the water,

because we're running out of time every second we wait.

Who's going to get water?

I am, George.

Everybody else is cleaning and organizing, basically.

We'll be okay.

I'm going to the river with John and Morgan.

We're gonna fill up a bunch of coolers, five-gallon buckets.

I'm ready. Okay.

Okay, let's do it.

After a disaster, public utilities will go down,

but the survivors are going to need

a secure, safe, reliable source of water.

Close proximity to a lake, reservoir, or river

will be critical to their long-term survival.

You can survive 4 minutes without oxygen,

4 days without water, and then 40 days without food,

and maybe less, depending on the amount of strenuous activity.

Where's the channel?

Is that what color this water is?

We're gonna purify it all.

We should go to the deeper water.

Water from the los angeles river is a toxic soup.

It's full of metals, pesticides, algae,

bacteria, runoff from automobiles.

It's completely unsafe to drink without some form of filtration.

That one will almost be full,

and then we'll get this one full,

and we get on out of here.

That should be enough water for a few days.

Just a few more of these 5-gallon buckets,

and we should be good.

I think this is us, actually.

We should try banging and see if anyone can answer us.

What the hell was that?

Hey! Hey, guys!

Ah, awesome.

There we go.

Get inside. Get inside. Get it inside.

You can actually see...

oh, there's some stuff swimming around in there right now.

Scientist John c. Finds that his computer skills

aren't the only asset he brings to the colony.

Start with a 55-gallon drum,

and then we'll put a layer of sand,

we'll put a layer of charcoal,

put a layer of sand... several layers.

His understanding of water filtration

could be the key to a safe water supply.

The plan is to clean the water in three stages.

First, a layer of sand sifts out large impurities,

such as rocks and algae.

Then a highly porous layer of charcoal

traps smaller impurities, such as lead and e. Coli.

The final step is boiling out any remaining bacteria.

Then they'll have safe filtered drinking water.

Using sand and charcoal they find in the yard,

the colonists get to work.

One of those, and then we are going to have the proof point.

- This is huge. - This is a very special moment.

Guys, i want to tell you something.

I had a son, sam, who was 14 years old,

who was killed in a traffic accident.

He was hit by a car crossing the street.

Soon after his death, we started making these stones.

They're just simple, made out of clay,

and they have his name written in them.

We were just thinking about giving this a test.

I figured, well, what could we do

to make the water taste better?

I'm gonna stick one of these in there for sam.

All right, there, sam. Get that.

Help us make that water good.

All right, let's do this.

All right!

Ooh, it is! Listen to it!

I just can't wait till everything is filtered.

Now we have water. It's great.

I knew you guys were so smart.

I love it.

Next, on "the colony"...

- we got fire! - Fire!

...the first night...

I'm scared of how long this is gonna last.

...and the first intruder.

The 10-week experiment at the colony has begun.

A group of volunteers are living in an abandoned factory

with no electricity and no running water

as they try to rebuild after a disaster.

In their first few hours, they've explored their new home

and built a functioning water filter.

Matches and fuel.

As the first night falls,

the worn-out colonists turn to other basic needs.

Hey, we got fire! Fire!

Come and warm your wet socks!

After marching 8 miles in the water...

mmm, listen to that crispy sock burn.

That's like dinner.

You guys, be careful with your bare feet.

With their shoes wet and their socks on the grill,

the colonists need protection for their feet.

I think these are shipping envelopes

for something that's somewhat fragile.

You guys, we found some kind-of sock stuff,

and we're gonna improvise a little.

What do you think?

I'm just experimenting here.

Got to tell you, i love your brain.

Well, don't say it yet.

Ah, it just feels so good to have dry feet.

They feel like I'm walking on air.

Oh, really? Yeah, so, you might want to do that.

Be a little careful, 'cause i wouldn't think

they're glass- or nail-proof.

Fabulous!

Meat, vegetables.

Bon appetit! Dinner is served!

Chicken vienna sausage? This tastes like filet mignon.

I'm looking forward to this piece of peanut butter.

First dinner was a collective mash

of just whatever canned foods we had.

It was the worst thing i ever had, but it's food.

We have food stocked for a while.

But it's not gonna last us. It's not sustainable.

So we're gonna have to come up with something real fast.

We have a lot of stuff in front of us.

We each know some stuff.

We each don't know a lot of stuff.

Somehow, we're gonna have to figure out

how to make that work.

Oh, this is great.

After dinner, the colonists tackle their next challenge...

the bathroom.

There's a number of communicable diseases that we can acquire

if you don't have proper plumbing...

e. Coli, salmonella, shigella, campylobacter, hepatitis.

When you're living in unsanitary conditions

and you're living in such close proximity to other people,

any of these communicable diseases

can spread like wildfire.

We're filling it to see if it overflows,

so we're gonna dump the whole bucket down the toilet

and see if it takes it all down.

If it takes it all down, we're golden.

If not, we run, because it's gonna overflow.

When there's no running water, toilets can be flushed manually

by pouring in enough water

to force the flow through the syphon tube in the back.

Okay, here she goes.

Just swe're clear,

we're all wearing styrofoam shoes,

so if this goes horribly wrong, we're gonna kill you.

It's heavy. You got it. You got it.

Until it flushes. You'll know.

Got to pour it vigorously. Quick. Quick.

Whoo! It's going down!

- Makes a syphon. - We have a crapper.

It's a magic moment.

Let's just do it together.

There's so many ways we can do it.

John and George improvise some bedding for the whole crew.

I think we could probably get by

with just the pallets and the box springs.

George and i got kind of pulled in to helping build a bedroom.

It was pretty minimal.

Let's just bring them.

We can put them on the side if we don't need them.

Are you guys gonna be sleeping on those?

So are you. Oh.

Fabric. You know what? We could use this.

And the styrofoam. Yes.

There was cardboard for some pallets.

I had found two box springs, which where pretty clean,

and between those, we managed to lay out a huge, monster bed,

which all the six of us could sleep in at once.

I'm thinking we all sleep...

that way? One, two, three.

Our feet can go off.

Drapery.

It'll certainly do tonight.

With water, fire, and sanitation in place for now,

the colonists organize an overnight security watch.

I run security from now till midnight.

I'll be staying up from 12:00 to 2:00.

Morgan, 12:00 to 2:00.

I'm 2:00 to 4:00, and then i wake George.

4:00 to 6:00. Okay.

You want to do morning?

Yeah, i'll do the morning, 'cause I'm gonna be up by then.

I've seen people live like this.

Now I'm living like they are, in a third-world condition

or a homeless condition.

And I'm scared. How long this is gonna last.

The colonists are finally getting their first sleep

in 40 hours, with michael on watch.

There is no security in this time.

You sleep with one eye open.

I got goose bumps.

I... don't get goose bumps.

After a catastrophe,

people uprooted from their homes

will attempt to acquire resources and shelter

by any means possible.

For survivors, security will be a constant test.

As part of the experiment,

an outside intruder attempts to break into the colony.

Who's there?

We scared him off. He's running away.

If i would caught the

that came through that back door,

god help him if i would have caught him.

You're messing with my reality,

I'm gonna mess with your reality.

So, what actually happened? I was still half asleep.

We heard a loud banging.

It was the front door trying to be opened.

- The gate was not compromised, huh? - The front gate? No.

We're always gonna have to be on our toes about that here.

Like, we're squatting here. You know, we're the marauders.

Does that get to you? Like, we're them?

We're someone else's marauders?

Isn't that weird?

I think there are a lot of people out there

who are just trying to stake out their own turf,

and maybe they're good people, maybe they're not.

It's not something I'm used to worrying about.

The intruder's visit has michael thinking about security.

Do you see that hole in the wall there?

No, show me. That door...

so, that could have been the noise we heard last night

along with whatever else.

What i found earlier is some welding sticks

we can use with jumper cables.

You want to weld it? No, i don't. We may need it.

We may need to use this door later.

A simple, little loop of small chain

so i can go all the way around the "i" beam.

I'm gonna punch a whole through the wall.

So, a little longer than my arms.

5, 6 feet is fine. Okay.

I want to keep this place secure.

They're nice people. They don't know about security.

I mean, i used to work in the fabrication business.

I built gates, security windows.

I know what secure is. This place is a beer can.

Moving on.

In any situation of scarcity, assume you're not alone.

You will have other survivors to contend with.

Unbeknownst to the first group of six,

four new volunteers are being introduced into the experiment,

and they're headed to the colony.

Like the others, they've been kept awake for 30 hours.

In survival mode,

there's a lot of things that you need to let go of

as far as a moral compass goes,

and sometimes it has to be every man for himself.

The compassion part of it... you have to kill that.

I am actually a martial arts instructor

and a personal trainer,

but i feel that I'm probably one of the people

least prepared for something like this,

and i have no idea if the skills that i have now

will actually help me survive.

When you go through a huge change in life,

there's always a transition period,

there's always a period of shock.

You've got a whole new situation in front of you,

a whole new family, a whole new set of rules.

You're just vulnerable.

You don't know how you're gonna react to things.

If the world would come to an end,

i will protect whatever i consider mine.

You have to stay safe. You have to have food.

Those would be the important things.

Is it locked?

Yeah.

Inside, the colonists are taken by surprise.

What the hell?

Hello!

Hey! We'd like to come in!

I hear you!

Somebody stand right there.

No, i understand. Let them talk.

Hey, come over this way.

Yo, hello? Hi.

How you doing? How are you?

What's going on in here?

It's all on you. You're the one inside.

I'm the one outside. Yeah.

We need to talk to them, at the very least. Let them in.

Nope, wait, wait. We do this as a group.

Got to do this as a group, okay?

Don't open the door!

What are you doing?

Let them in. They want a place to stay.

Let's just have a talk with them.

We don't have to let them in the door.

Let's open the door and talk to them.

I can't, in all good conscience, turn away people

unless they've proven that they want to do us harm.

Well, then, let them in!

It's tough enough with the people we got inside.

This isn't a welfare house.

Listen, you're obviously scared about something. You got stuff.

Look, one sec, and we'll show you everything, okay?

And I'm not gonna lie.

- I got a small, little pocketknife right here. - Drop it.

Drop it! Drop it!

Pat him down as soon as he mes in the door.

He ain't coming in the door.

Joey. I'm Joey. What's your name?

Mike.

You're obviously in there, you're in charge.

You got a few things. You're worried about a few things.

I am not in charge. I'm just an angry, ugly monkey.

I am not in charge.

You can be whatever you want to be, all right?

What I'm saying is you guys are in charge right now,

'cause we're on the outside.

You're in charge right there. Look at that

what the am i gonna do right now?

You guys come in.

Put all your bags right there. Absolutely.

Put your jackets right there, and we'll all talk.

Joey, I'm George.

I understand we're in a very difficult environment.

Resources are limited.

But there's four people that didn't have any shelter.

They had no place to go.

They had no food, they had no water,

and they came to our doors asking for a sanctuary.

It wasn't a difficult decision.

I felt like it was the right thing to do.

Empty out your pockets. Leave all that stuff there, too.

John, they seem nice.

Have a seat on the ground.

How about if we stand over there?

I'm not gonna sit on the ground while you guys hold pipes.

How about that? You wouldn't do the same thing.

There we go.

Even ground. Even ground.

Come on, guys. How long you guys been here? Awhile.

A long time?

You guys have any water or food or anything?

You been able to scavenge in the area or anything?

Yes, we've been able to get water from the river.

How far are you guys from the river?

Not very far.

We've got some food supplies

that we've scavenged from an abandoned store.

And then we also have some more

that we found when we arrived at sanctuary.

Someone was living here before us.

Well, we have no plans.

I don't want them bringing in anything.

Clothes, shoes.

More stuff on the top.

Hey, yo!

You know what? I need to check you out. No, no, no, no, no.

But that looks like stealing to me.

I put your stuff right back

exactly where it was, in its container.

Let's just do it all in front of everybody.

You see what I'm saying?

I totally understand why we had to leave this stuff here.

But you have to observe some common courtesies.

We're not animals.

As much as i wish

we could have given the new colonists an open-arms welcome,

that would have been an unrealistic thing to ask

of anyone in this situation,

though we did not have to be rude,

we did not have to infringe on their rights as human beings.

Some of the stuff that michael did,

some of the stuff that John did were completely unacceptable.

Next on "the colony"...

the lights come up...

but nighttime intruders return.

Everybody up!

As the experiment's second night falls,

the four new arrivals have changed the survival equation.

So, basically, this is all we have so far.

Here's a big one. That should be half of us.

So, tonight, it's pasta, vegetables, and peanuts.

Just having a roof over our heads.

We got to get through the rough patch, you know?

And it's going to be rough.

I just feel the heat, and it's in the can, so...

in many cultures,

a shared meal is a key step in integrating newcomers.

Thank you, heavenly father,

for bringing us today together,

and help us with our friends,

and hopefully we can call them friends in the future,

and we took a chance,

and hopefully you'll guide us in that.

After a period of time,

people really start to internalize these roles,

and it becomes real to them.

It's almost as if they really are living

in a post-apocalyptic world.

Amen. Amen.

Right now, every little thing we have is real important,

even down to the things that are in the trash can.

If you have a strong faith, you want to help the poor,

you want to help the needy,

but you have to take care of your own first.

First of all, let's just get to know each other.

So, I'm Allison.

I'm Vladimir. I'm an engineer.

I'm a fisherman. I'm a hunter.

I can help you out quite a lot.

The apprehension, i think, is equal on both sides.

They were inviting us in, six of them,

not knowing who we are.

Are we going to be friendlies

or are we just going to want to take over?

Are we gonna try and grab their goodies?

I'm Joey, and I'm a contractor...

mostly framing, concrete, some electrical, plumbing.

Hi, my name is Leilani.

I'm a physical-fitness coach and a personal trainer.

My name's Amy.

Yeah, so, I'm a marine biologist,

and I'm just really grateful

to have a place to put my head down tonight.

Thank you.

Everybody has a past. Everybody does.

We'll all discover more things about each other,

and we'll just take it as it comes.

I'm an ex-convict. I've done about six years.

I was a trafficker. Okay.

Yeah, and i would like you to know that

because I'd rather you know that's what i did it for

than anything else.

I've never hurt anybody. I've been inside.

I'm not who i used to be,

but i've had to be somebody else in my life before.

Joey told us he did six years in prison,

and i thought that was really brave of him,

so he has factual... you know,

he's directly experienced this other world

that i hope never to experience.

What am i saying? I am in the middle of it.

And this, then, goes on top of that.

After dinner, the new arrivals get settled in,

but as part of the experiment,

a new set of intruders are sent in

to threaten the colonists' resources and stability.

In an apocalyptic or catastrophic event,

there are going to be individuals with the intent

of either stealing what you have for their survival

or just causing mayhem for their entertainment.

Everybody up!

Marauders have instructions

not to harm the colonists physically,

but the volunteers don't know that.

I hate it. I hate being angry. I hate being scared.

I don't hold it against them personally.

They're just trying to do what they're trying to do,

which is survive, but they want to survive

by taking what's keeping me alive.

An attack from outside

can reveal the cohesiveness of a group

or it can expose the weak links.

I saw two on bikes!

Anger can be difficult to control.

It's a useful survival response, but can also be destructive.

There's only two of them!

We should have gone out there and kicked some butt!

I could have that bike now!

Do not yell between us! We only yell at them!

Come on, Mike, control yourself! My goodness!

Now they have you riled up, not thinking.

You fight fire with fire.

If you went outside and got hurt,

what good would that have done for us?

What good would it have done?

Now you're out. Now what do we do?

You have to think about that.

It's tough enough i have to kick cigarettes.

It's tough enough i have to kick the booze, kick the coffee.

That's enough to drive anyone up the wall.

And now here you've got to starve,

and you got to go find your food,

and you have to build your shelter,

and you have to sleep on the ground.

If that doesn't stress out anybody, then they're not human.

The experiment enters day three at the colony,

and the recent arrivals awake to their new home.

With basics like shelter, food, and water

temporarily taken care of, next on the agenda is power.

This is the basic, simple system we need to get done today.

Me and John are gonna start working

on linking all the batteries together.

If you guys think that electricity

is that important to you,

then let's scramble right now and collect all the batteries.

Handyman Mike puts to use

the batteries found on the first day.

It doesn't look like much,

but each one of these batteries are around 60 to 80 pounds.

Okay, here we go.

2, 4, 6, 18, 20.

20. okay, so, we have 20 batteries.

Mike's plan is to daisy-chain the batteries

in parallel to maximize the available amperage,

then convert the direct current to household a.c.

Using an inverter.

The main job here is now wiring all these batteries in parallel,

and then we can run a.c. Up and along the pipes

and throughout the building for emergency lighting.

If we just get power tonight for emergency lighting,

it'll be good enough for me.

Next one.

Good one.

Yeah, that's good. 12 1/2.

That's good. Next one.

13... whoo-whee!

We're rocking.

I'd say that's a bad one.

Okay.

I'm going to use this wire, Mike, on the negative side.

We're going to now hook it up to our inverter

that's going to take our 12-volt batteries into 110

and give us electricity,

so close your eyes for the sparks.

All right. Okay, here we go.

Lights.

Whoo!

All right, all right.

Okay, okay, okay. We have light.

We still need a generator to recharge them,

so we have three to seven days

of minimal lighting with three fixtures.

Michael found an inverter, which will give us lighting,

but unless we can figure out a way

of recharging those batteries,

that's gonna be a very short-lived idea.

The typical american uses 144 gallons of water a day.

The colonists are budgeting one gallon per person.

Keeping a supply of filtered water will be crucial

to the colonists' survival.

All the water that we've been collecting,

we're not actually adding enough, right now,

water supply per day to make up for how much we take in.

This big thing right here holds a lot of water. Right.

And, of course, secure it up a little bit.

We put the filtrate system on top.

It flows down, and we keep this filtering,

filtering, filtering, filtering.

Hoping to guarantee a steady supply,

machinist John v. Has an idea

to give the charcoal-and-sand water filter a sturdier home.

We'll have more water than we know what to do with.

Okay, stick it up against the wall.

You're gonna have to chalk those up with wood or something.

Heads up.

See the giant thing, weighs about 400 pounds?

There we go. Okay.

You're good.

One of their last buckets of river water

goes in for the test.

Everybody drink.

The colonists have a working storage unit.

Now all they need is more water.

I probably lost half my water,

so I'm gonna say I'm gonna use twice as much water today.

Next on "the colony"...

go time is go time is go time is go time.

...a hard rain falls...

that is crazy.

...and the colony tries to catch it.

Okay, go, go, go.

It was like a religious experience.

As day four begins at the colony,

engineer Vlad has a surprise for everyone.

Hey, Vladimir, come here. Look at this.

Come here. This will work, actually.

He's come with coffee in whole beans.

But brewing it will be a project all its own.

More, more, more, more, more, more, more.

Using cheesecloth as a filter

and parts from a broken coffee machine

they find among the junk, they produce their first brew.

Be able to do everything else on the priority list.

Don't knock it.

All right, cheers.

Let's do the taste test.

Ooh, careful!

What do you think?

Ah, ooh!

Can i have about half a cup of that sugar?

It's coffee.

It's real coffee.

Oh, my god.

That is so good.

It's like having a thorn in your head,

and then finally pulling it out after three days.

Ahh!

Well, i got to help the boys. Coffee break's over.

Four days in,

the colonists still have six days of power,

nine days of food, but only one day of water.

As the colony's spirits rise, a rare l.a. Storm is gathering.

Let's go outside and see what we can do for a rain gutter.

Hoping to increase the stock of fresh water,

Mike and John decide to investigate

the factory's rain gutters.

That... is the gutter line.

...is the gutter from the roof.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Wait. What's that?

Sewer pipe. No.

Drop pipe? No.

That big, old pipe... big, old pipe... yeah, baby!

It's rainwater. There's our rainwater.

In a sense, the roof of a large building

is a rainwater collector,

but it's designed to channel that rainwater

to the storm drains.

Right there. It's right there.

Oh, this one goes into the street.

That's right. All we got to do is cut it.

We collect all our water right there.

That's collecting from this whole section of roof.

We'll have more rainwater than we know what to do with.

It's raining.

It starting to rain right now.

It's raining right now. Let's get to work.

Grab the pipe and cut.

Okay.

Ow.

Go get 'em. Go, go, go.

Kids! Kids! We need help!

It's raining, our pipe is cut,

and we need to start collecting water.

We got to line the barrels with plastic

'cause they're dirty.

All right!

Where do they need to go? All the way in the corner.

It's gonna be coming out right through here.

It's gonna come flowing. Here it comes.

Here it comes. I told you.

I wasn't sure if the system would even work,

and there it is working, see?

That is crazy. We need to change the bucket.

Okay, go, go, go.

The colonists realize that gathering buckets of rain now

can save them several trips to the river.

When it's pouring like that

and you're like, "wow, look at what we got"...

in two minutes, we're gonna pull this one off. Okay.

...it was go time.

Go time is go time is go time is go time,

and i think that's what people

really need to get through their head here.

I was hustling my ass the best i could.

I saw in their eyes they were trying

and struggling to try and get as much water as they could.

I just want my socks and underwear washed right now.

I don't want to take away the water from what we need it for,

but if i can get by, I'd be happy.

The first part of the collected rain is too dirty to drink

because of the grime on the roof,

but it is suitable for laundry.

So, should i use this water?

Amy, should i use this water to wash

since it's the dirtiest water?

This is the first runoff, yeah.

It's not dirty dirty, you know?

Lacking detergent, they add baking soda to the rainwater

to clean the clothes

with a piece of corrugated steel as a washboard.

Just rub it back and forth.

You'll get some of the dirt out without having to squeeze it.

John and Mike unearth a locker

full of old work clothes to change into.

Oh, man!

That's not cutting it, is it?

Yeah, we're doing everyone's clothes.

Just put them over here.

But i like this. Guys, girls. Guys, girls.

There's all these little chores that most of the guys

haven't actually gotten... things like cooking, cleaning.

Anything that's not involving a tool and hammer and a nail,

they don't seem to want to do it.

It's almost like we're back in the dark ages.

Shh. Shh. Shh. They're doing our laundry.

Leave them alone.

Please. I want clean undies.

Look at this.

Standing still...

...and stuff's getting done.

This week has been very difficult for me.

It's tougher than i thought it was going to be.

I think we're gonna continue to shock the hell out of ourselves.

It might be the end of the world as we know it,

but we need to build something new,

and being sad about what's around us

or what we used to have

is not going to bring light into what the future holds.

Oh, this is great.

This is truly, truly, truly great.

I forgot what clean felt like.

It was like a religious experience.

I just could feel the stink coming off of me,

and it was just liberating.

It was the first time i laughed since we got here.

This feels wonderful!