The entire group makes it back to where Irene is and they all seem convinced that the best course of action is to wait until the rescue team arrives, despite Irene’s leg getting tired. Daniel, though, begins talking about her stepping off the mine, claiming that it’s a dud to the horror/disbelief of everyone else. He steps over the barbed wire fence separating him from Irene and slowly walks over to her, where he gets her to grab his hand and quickly step off the mine. With some of the contestants unable to watch, she does just that and the mine ends up being a dud after all. When they get back to the facility, the two groups compare war stories from their time apart, from Johnny’s electrocution from the tower to Sam nearly losing his foot; while talking about how much his team helped him make it through the ordeal, Sam mentions that he didn’t think he was going to live any longer and closed his eyes, hallucinating seeing Natalie by a river bed. As he recounts his vision, Annie becomes upset and leaves, causing the news of Natalie’s discovery to be broken to Daniel, Sam, Johnny, and Joyce for the first time.

Sam finds Annie and gives her some encouraging words about Natalie, patching things up between them immediately. While Irene shows off how quickly her wound healed to Joyce and Johnny fixes the radio connection, a vehicle approaches and the group thinks that this is their salvation, their ticket out of the Siberian wilderness. However, out of the military van comes a stream of masked soldiers with rifles, who shout Russian at them and force them down on the ground. Chaos ensues in front of the research facility as the contestants try to make them understand that they mean no harm, the soldiers furiously check coats looking for something, and Johnny, Daniel, and Esther, the only three who didn’t make it outside in time, wonder what the heck they’re going to do.

For her part, Esther gets dragged out to join her friends just before the soldiers and the contestants quietly talk amongst themselves. Sam informs Miljan that the guys are looking for some type of weapon and aren’t upset about the dead bodies in the facility, since they’re the ones who killed the scientists that were working there. Inside, Johnny and Daniel are trying to decide what to do, with the latter wanting to give the radio another try; Joyce, though, stands up while the soldiers are talking and attempts to talk to one of the superior officers, explaining that they’re contestants on a reality show and that they were the ones who called for the help. What hurts her is that she lies when asked if there’s anybody else, since the leader of the squad sends one of his men into the facility where Johnny and Daniel are and gets him to bring them out. They tie Joyce’s hands up to the truck with zip-tip and point a handgun at her head, counting down from 3 and seemingly ready to kill her off in front of her friends. However, before they can pull the trigger, the land mines get set off, giving the contestants the opportunity to run inside and duck for cover.

While Sam tells the group that the Russians were talking about the Valleymen, Johnny makes a break for the outdoors in order to free Joyce and bring her in before they can finish the job. He gets her untied and rushes her into the facility, going back outside where Daniel remains. The two are on the opposite sides of the road and make a break for it as the explosions get closer to the group. When they arrive inside, they hear a loud, beastly roaring coming from the outside, where the soldiers had been emptying countless rounds at an unseen assailant since the mines started going off.

Darkness comes and the battle is still raging on. The group is split on what to do – Miljan and Neeko want to stay in and wait for things to die down, while Daniel and Johnny discover that there’s nobody at the truck, giving them enough room to run for the vehicle and get away. What ultimately decides the fate of the group is Sam informing them that the soldiers were going to execute each and every one of them, meaning that they’re going to try and reach the truck rather than waiting around to die. Cutting their plan off is a random power outage; when Johnny and Joyce go to work on the breaker, they find that one of the soldiers had made it inside the facility, though Johnny subdues him amid a flurry of gun shots. He then takes Sabina outside to cover him as he attempts to take the truck, which he manages to do easily. As the group is driving away from the scene, they see Annie running behind the truck, forgotten amid the chaos. Before they can slow the vehicle down enough to allow her to jump on, though, the soldiers take aim and fire at her, killing her with one shot to the back.

The following morning, everybody is still a mixture of sad and shell-shocked, with Joyce feeling sick after never seen a person die before. When Esther hands her bag to Irene, in search of water, they find Annie’s sketch pad, full of drawings of everybody in the group. They can’t get too pensive, though, not when Johnny runs the truck into a ditch after fish-tailing when he hits a patch of ice. Daniel claims that they’re only a couple miles from town, so everybody gets out of the truck to push while Johnny runs the gas. That doesn’t work, so Esther volunteers to push the gas pedal while the stronger Johnny pushes; it works this time, only Esther just keeps on going and drives off without the group. And she wasn’t alone, because according to Miljan, Esther found the money in the Revealer and took it before giving the key to Neeko, stashing it in her bag and having it with her the entire time.

Though the group is upset with Esther, they quickly make the journey to the edge of town and are soon in town square, yelling for help. Only there’s nobody there – no stores are open, no cars are running, no lights are on. It has been evacuated and its citizens transported to the nearest military camp. Searches for phones and working vehicles do no good, though the truck that Esther was driving is found in an alley – without Esther or the money. They do see, though, lights on at a nearby apartment building, where they also find a stocked fridge and plenty of warm clothes. Finally, it seems as if the group can truly relax; Johnny and Joyce flirt in the kitchen while cooking, Irene kisses Daniel for the first time, Neeko and Sabina experience a noticeable wave of exhaustion and relief, and the first music they’ve heard since they arrived in Siberia gets played.

Later, they go through the stockpile of items that Sabina stole from the producers when the game was still going on. Among them is a tape she found in the woods, a tape that shows what happened to Johnny and Joyce the day the sky caught on fire. On the tape, they find an overturned cauldron with 16 dots and what looks like hieroglyphics carved along the edge; quickly, darkness comes and the same type of roaring that was heard earlier in the episode is heard in the woods, Johnny and Joyce running from a creature whose shape isn’t discernible on camera. The encounter is over after seconds, leaving Joyce cut and bruised from the attack and the group anxious to watch it again to see just what the hell happened.

Before they can, though, somebody comes to the door. It’s Buckley, the host of the show and whose apartment they’re squatting in. He tells them that they’re not supposed to be there.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-As a season finale, that was actually kind of awesome and left me feeling satisfied(-ish) in terms of capital-A Answers while teasing me enough that I need a second season to premiere, say, next week. As a series finale, it was less successful yet still pretty okay – if this is the end of Siberia, I feel like I understand the major stuff that they wanted to get across and the happenings that the contestants experienced while in the woods. That being said, they ended the episode in about the coolest way that they could and I’ve only been made more curious about the details of what went on, why it was these particular people picked for Test Group C, and why the host was still living in the evacuated town.
-(Some) unsolved questions: who is editing this footage together? Where did Esther end up after ditching the truck? How can the host live in a town without power? Did the contestants who were eliminated/left early actually make it out of Siberia? How in the world did the Revealer work? (Was everything pre-loaded? And if so, does that include the snake?) Where did Miljan’s journal go?
-I’m glad that they left the creature’s true form pretty much unintelligible, because frankly, this show is super low-budget and there’s a high probability that it would look stupid/cheap. Better to leave something like this to our imagination and let us fill in the blanks with the template they’ve provided.
-If you find yourself trapped in the Siberian wilderness, apparently all you need is some duct tape and you can fix pretty much anything.
-That stupid sketch pad made me all choked up and I didn’t even really like Annie. Also, Daniel deserved that kiss and then some for doing everything he did for Irene (and the group).
-Favorite character? I love Esther. She was such a mustache-twirling villain, but I appreciated her ruthlessness and how she really was the smartest player in the game. Enjoy your money, girl.
-Can we talk about the awful handling of this show? It premieres a few days before a holiday, the pilot is released early (which doesn’t help ratings), the marketing leaned too heavily on making it seem like another reality series, and NBC refused to move it out of the way of Under the Dome, which was probably my biggest frustration. I get NBC’s idea of a “Guy’s Night” lineup with American Ninja Warrior, Get Out Alive, and this, but when they saw the ratings behemoth that the CBS series became, they should have replaced Siberia with reruns and moved it to a more friendly time period. Even ABC got wise and moved Mistresses out of the way and I’d bet 50 internet dollars that there’s more crossover between Siberia and Under the Dome vs. Under the Dome and Mistresses. While I don’t know if this show could have ever been a major hit, NBC definitely didn’t give it a good chance in becoming one.
-Thank you guys for reading my Siberia coverage this season. I thought the show wasn’t that compelling for the first 3-4 episodes – it mimicked the conventions of reality TV quite intelligently, but it was more than a little dull and didn’t craft the best characters due to having them act like real, (mostly) unedited people. However, once things started to go awry with production, it became pretty fun (like a good B-movie) and, like it or not, I got invested in the fate of these people and wanted them to make it out alive. As mentioned above, with the poor ratings and relative finality of this episode, I’m not going to be devastated by a cancellation, since it’s been expected for a while. Since the show was already made before the creators/producers took it to NBC, I hope there’s enough interest out there for another season to be made on one platform or another, because I think this is a perfect summer show and something that, with the right handling, could have done much better than it did.

The post Siberia Season Finale Recap: Did the Contestants Make It Out of Siberia? appeared first on TVHackr.

On the season finale of Siberia, the would-be rescue team arrives at the facility, yet rather than ask what the heck happened or check out the buildings to see if there’s anybody else there, the first thing they do is make the contestants get down on the ground. The language barrier is something that the remaining members of Siberia have managed to avoid due to having Sam around, but in their excitement at making contact on the radio, they didn’t listen to what the other end was saying, nor did they get an indication from the cameraman of who they were talking to and what was being said. While it didn’t matter to them then, it obviously matters now, since the people they thought would be their saviors are holding a gun at them and don’t speak enough English to communicate. Just who did the contestants connect with on the radio and why are they so aggressive?

Elsewhere on Siberia, after being reunited at the research facility, the contestants learn that one of their own is stuck in a hidden minefield surrounding the station.

Siberia airs Mondays at 10:00 on NBC.

Who do you think will make it out of Siberia alive? Will we see any previously eliminated contestants emerge during the finale? Can the contestants outsmart the rescue team they called at the end of the last episode?

The post Siberia Season Finale Preview: The Rescue Team Arrives at the Research Facility appeared first on TVHackr.

On the next episode of Siberia, Sabina, Neeko, and Miljan have been abducted by the mysterious armed men that showed up at their cabin, who turn out to be a part of a hostile local tribe. Though their intentions aren’t yet clear, the team gets reunited with Irene once they make it back to the natives’ camp; as threatening as the men may have been, they would have had to actively work to keep Irene alive, so they might not be as dangerous as they let on. At least, if their intentions for keeping her around don’t have the type of sinister underpinning that would be unveiled now that more of her peers are in the same space as she is. Ironically, what could prove to be Irene’s greatest threat are the other contestants, should they get brave/foolish enough to try to escape with her in tow. It’s something of a miracle that she’s made it as far as she has, especially considering the condition that both her leg and spirit were in earlier this season, but if they get caught trying to sneak her out, Irene’s luck will have run its course.

Elsewhere on Siberia, the team at the research facility finds evidence of deadly experimentation that has been conducted there – and may have included them as subjects.

Siberia airs Mondays at 10:00 on NBC.

What do you think the tribe wants with the contestants? How has Irene survived this long away from the rest of the group? Will learning of the experimentation inspire those at the facility to leave for good?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHqs6kbfb2A

The post Siberia 1.10 Preview: Where are Sabina, Neeko, and Miljan? appeared first on TVHackr.

Listed below are the dates, titles, and descriptions of the final two episodes of Siberia‘s first season.

Monday, September 9th – “Strange Bedfellows”
Neeko (Neeko O.J. Skervin), Miljan (Miljan Milosevic), and Sabina (Sabina Akhmedova) are abducted by a hostile local tribe and, fearing for their lives, make a surprising discovery at natives’ camp. Meanwhile, Joyce (Joyce Giraud), Sam (Sam Dobbins), Johnny (John Wactor), and Daniel (Daniel David Sutton) are desperate to find a way to communicate with the world outside the research station and in the process, find unsettling evidence of strange and deadly experiments that have been conducted there and may well be ongoing with them as the subjects.

Monday, September 16th – “…Into the Oven”
Following the path shown to them by the Evenki natives, Miljan, Esther (Esther Anderson), Irene (Irene Yee), Annie (Anne-Marie Mueschke), Neeko, and Sabina come upon the research station where Joyce, Sam, Johnny, and Daniel have been holed up. But what might have been a happy reunion is complicated by the revelation that one of the contestants is stuck in hidden minefield surrounding the research station and the rescue party coming to save them might not be who they seem.

Siberia airs Mondays at 10:00 on NBC.

Do you think that the remaining contestants will make it out of Siberia alive? Is the game still going on and if so, who is the favorite to “win” the show? What type of experiments would those at the research facility have conducted on the contestants?

The post Siberia Finale Spoilers: Who Will Make It Out Alive? appeared first on TVHackr.

On the next episode of Siberia, Miljan has returned to camp, but before Neeko or Sabina can kill him for what (they think) he did to Irene, he mentions that she was taken by someone. The details of the abduction shake the two up enough to where they begin searching for the missing rifle as a means of protecting themselves from whatever took Irene. While they don’t know if they can fully trust Miljan, not after everything that he’s done in recent episodes, they can’t afford to take the chance that he’s telling them the truth, not after what they’ve witnessed while out in the woods. With their numbers dwindling after the split and Esther and Annie’s disappearance, Neeko and Sabina are all each other has right now and if they’re going to survive the show, they’ll have to do whatever they have to in order to protect one another.

Elsewhere on Siberia, the group at the research station make a horrifying discovery, yet find themselves relatively comfortable as they learn about the history of the Siberian wilderness, while those back at the settlement face starvation.

Siberia airs Mondays at 10:00 on NBC.

Who do you think took Irene and are they responsible for taking Esther and Annie, as well? Is Miljan telling the truth that he didn’t have anything to do with any of it? Where is the rifle?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5IZ2DwfMXE

The post Siberia 1.09 Preview: Who Has Taken Irene? appeared first on TVHackr.

Listed below are the dates, titles, and descriptions of the next two episodes of Siberia.

Monday, August 26th – “Gathering Fog”
With the sudden and mysterious disappearance of some contestants, and those remaining split into two groups to find help or rescue, natural and supernatural elements combine to heighten their fear, anger, and desperation. Joyce (Joyce Giraud), Johnny (Johnny Wactor), Sam (Sam Dobbins), and Daniel (Daniel David Sutton) continue a not-so-steady course toward a beacon that seems to have vanished. Meanwhile, freezing temperatures and near zero visibility, a result of the thick fog, put their lives in peril. Elsewhere, the other contestants left at the camp make a grisly and horrifying discovery.

Monday, September 2nd – “One by One”
Joyce, Daniel, Sam, and Johnny look for power at the research station and make a horrifying and grisly discovery. Meanwhile back at the cabins, one of the missing contestants returns with a story that shocks Sabina and Neeko and forces them to take defensive action, including a renewed search for the missing rifle. The distance and separation between the groups becomes more stark as the settlers face starvation and attack by unseen forces, while the group at the research station enjoys relative comfort and learns more about the mysterious history of the Siberian wilderness.

Siberia airs Mondays at 10:00 on NBC.

Where do you think the rifle is right now? Why would Miljan want to take Irene from the camp? Will Joyce, Johnny, Sam, and Daniel reunite with the others?

The post Siberia Spoilers: The Contestants Look for the Missing Rifle appeared first on TVHackr.

On the next episode of Siberia, an early winter has hit Siberia, even though it’s still the middle of the summer. Now, the group heading toward the light has to deal with devastating temperatures and the possibility of not making it to their destination, as they don’t have any means of protecting themselves against the elements. But what could really be their undoing is the fact that their chances of making it home are slipping through their fingers, that even if they survive the cold, they don’t know how long it will linger or if they’ll get another chance as good as this to find their way out of Siberia. The hope they invested in the light was about all that was keeping them going, but it might have gotten extinguished by the random snowfall that could claim their lives in the process.

Elsewhere on Siberia, one contestant is pushed to the edge of their sanity and has to be tied down, while the group that stayed back at camp has to hike to the base camp in order to look for food and clothing.

Siberia airs Mondays at 10:00 on NBC.

Do you think it was smart for the group to split in two? Which contestant is most likely heading toward insanity? Will every contestant survive the cold and the separation of the two factions?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU4XyENzHmc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43ChfddFlDk

The post Siberia 1.07 Preview: Winter is Coming appeared first on TVHackr.

On the next episode of Siberia, the Revealer gives the contestants their first item in several episodes: a single gas mask. Since they don’t know if the producers actually fled the country or are using the deserted camp scene as another psychological mind game, the thought is that they’re about to be gassed as some sort of sick twist in the game that is starting to wear on all of them emotionally. What’s curious about the Revealer become active following the producer abandonment, aside from the timing itself, is that somebody had to load the mask into the box for it to drop down to the contestants; either the producers loaded it within the last couple of days and left before they could see the contestants’ reactions to the latest potential twist or someone else has taken over the game, someone who wants to ratchet up the pressure impacting the contestants and someone willing to turn the game fatal – all for the sake of entertainment.

Elsewhere on Siberia, Esther becomes the object of a brutal verbal attack once Johnny, Joyce, and Daniel return to camp, while Sam finds the book that Miljan’s been carrying around and a mysterious radio tower beacon appears in the distance. Is this the saving grace for the contestants?

Siberia airs tonight at 10:00 on NBC.

Do you think that the producers are planning to gas the contestants? Why would they have abandoned the basecamp in such a hurry? What do you expect to learn from Miljan’s book?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HKw9J5z20A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qEkeTuK6ro

The post Siberia 1.06 Preview: The Fall of the Revealer appeared first on TVHackr.

Listed below are the dates, titles, and descriptions of the next two episodes of Siberia.

Monday, August 12th – “Out of the Frying Pan”
When Johnny (Johnny Wactor), Joyce (Joyce Giraud), and Daniel (Daniel David Sutton) return with news of the bloody scene left behind at the abandoned producers’ basecamp, Esther (Esther Anderson) is the object of an angry verbal attack by all the others who now fear for their lives alone in the wilderness. Sam (Sam Dobbins) finds and keeps Miljan’s (Miljan Milosevic) century-old Russian diary and reads aloud about a violent tribe of “Valleymen” feared by the original settlers and who still may be stalking the Siberian contestants; and a mysterious radio tower beacon appears in the distance, promising hope of salvation.

Monday, August 19th – “First Snow”
Plunging temperatures and withering hope, push some of the contestants to the edge of sanity, requiring one to be tied down while another’s life hangs in the balance. The group hiking out toward the beacon faces death amid the treacherous cold, while the others search the abandoned and bloody producers’ camp, yielding some desperately needed food and clothing. But the joy is short lived as the reality of an early winter sets in with the contestants now split into two groups each not knowing the fate of the other.

Siberia airs Mondays at 10:00 on NBC.

What do you think happened to the producers of Siberia? Will the two groups ever find their way back to one another? Who will ultimately “win” the show and escape with their life?

The post Siberia Spoilers: The Contestants Deal with an Early Winter appeared first on TVHackr.

The series is one of several scripted offerings NBC will be offering this summer, joining the likes of crime drama Crossing Lines and dramedy Camp, starring Rachel Griffiths, on the schedule. Though its premise was already limited in terms of how long it could feasible be sustainable, its chances of survival were dealt a rough blow when future timeslot rival Under the Dome became the most-watched summer drama premiere since 1992. Being that Siberia isn’t based on a known property, features no name-actors, will air on NBC, and arrives a week after a similar show bowed, it’ll be difficult for the show to gain a foothold on Monday nights, which have become extremely competitive this summer. However, many shows have stared down huge competition in the past and lived to tell the tale, so Siberia doesn’t need to become the next NBC blockbuster in order to secure another season – like its contestants, it just needs to survive.

Siberia stars Sabina Akhmedova (Klub), Berglind Icey (Cram), Natalie Scheetz (Madison County), Johnny Wactor (Army Wives), and Joyce Giraud (Tyler Perry’s House of Payne).

The series premiere of Siberia airs Monday, July 1st at 10:00 on NBC.

Will you be watching Siberia this summer? Could this premise be extended over multiple seasons, should the show be successful? Is it a good idea for networks to release pilots early?

The post NBC: Watch the Series Premiere of Siberia Here appeared first on TVHackr.