The Summit review – you’d think these useless adventurers had never seen a mountain before

2026-02-10 - 22:25

The premise is simple: an unlikable group of strangers try to climb one of the New Zealand Alps, despite being vastly unsuited to it. I despise the show, the contestants, and myself for watching it Can you have too much hate in your hate-watch? That is the question that presses unexpectedly hard as the new reality competition show The Summit begins. The premise is hateful in the standard way: 14 strangers (which might as well be 17,000 in televisual terms – only The Traitors does more and it generally dispenses with half of them before they have even set foot inside the castle) are gathered together to tackle a task for which they are vastly and vividly unfitted – in this case, they are going to climb a mountain. In the New Zealand Alps, if you care. If you do, you won’t for long. None of them, naturally, have ever climbed a mountain before. It’s possible that some have never seen a mountain before. It’s possible that some have never walked anywhere before. Thomas has – he’s a tour guide – but he doesn’t like heights. Tyra has done the Duke of Edinburgh bronze and silver and thinks it can’t be much different from that. Pageant and fitness coach Afton, whose ultra-posh accent sounds uncannily like Celeste Dring’s Eugenie in The Windsors, has been glamping “but thaaaah was a chaaaaarf”. (There was a chef, in case you were wondering.) She wears a pink Lycra outfit and starts screaming when she sees mud. Continue reading...