Long slow trips are a popular source of complaint, but when Australian TV viewers were taken on one recently, they demanded more…and slower. The Viceland station will now air a 17-hour uninterrupted engineer’s-eye view of a slow trip from Adelaide to Darwin.
The station, which described the original broadcast as based on Norway’s famous slow-TV programs following reindeer migrations and the like, originally showed a 3-hour version, and got 583,000 viewers, making it the station’s best-rated show in a year.
As the train moves through Australia’s varied geography, there is text explaining each area’s local history, with a focus on indigienous history and early settlers from Europe, China and Afghanistan.
If the new version isn’t enough, there’s more: The actual journey of The Ghan, Australia’s most famous rail route, takes 54 hours.
