Our new favourite …
Boxset
What’s it called?
Abandoned
What’s it about?
The utter decrepitude of America’s built environment – specifically its hundreds of thousands of acres of abandoned shopping malls, schools, factories, cinemas and amusement parks. The series even tours a missile silo and a power plant, and among the cities visited are Cleveland, Detroit, New Orleans and St Louis, each one with its own post-apocalyptic pleasures to explore.
Who’s in it?
The presenter is Rick McCrank, who tours these now-unloved and rotting remains in the company of locals who have connections to the places – and who know how to get in and out safely, which is almost as important.
Fun fact …
As well as being an amiable and entertaining host, McCrank is also a legend among skateboarders. Born in Canada, he skated professionally for Tony Hawks’s Birdhouse team and Plan B Skateboards and now runs his own skate shop and company in Vancouver. So of course he takes the opportunity to skate in whichever site he finds himself – making sure he sweeps up all the broken glass and discarded syringes first.
Best bits so far?
In Rolling Acres, a massive abandoned shopping mall in Ohio, McCrank spots what looks very like a human scalp floating in a pool of water. He prods it with a stick and decides it’s probably a dead animal. Probably.
Where can I find it?
Although made by and for Viceland, the film and TV offshoot of Vice Media overseen by Oscar-nominated director Spike Jonze, Abandoned is now available to view for free in the boxset section of Channel 4’s on-demand platform All 4.
For fans of ...
Top Gear, urban blight, zombie movies set in abandoned shopping malls.
Anything else I need to know?
It really did look like a human scalp.
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