SAS Australia

TV.Cynic · October 2, 2023, 10:54pm

TV’s toughest test is back!

Who will pass selection when SAS Australia returns 7.30pm Monday

The most savage show on TV, SAS Australia, returns to Channel 7 and 7plus on Monday, 9 October with a new group of star recruits descending on one of the toughest environments faced by Special Forces operatives: the Middle East.

Former world boxing champion Anthony Mundine, ‘Cocaine Cassie’, Olympians Stephanie Rice, Peter Bol and Matthew Mitcham, Balinese princess Lindy Klim, Thai cave rescue hero Dr Craig Challen and Brownlow medallist Jason Akermanis are just some of the 14 Aussie celebrities who have volunteered for the toughest challenge of their lives: a series of physical and psychological tests from the real SAS selection process.

For the first time on SAS Australia, these men and women will travel offshore to a secret base in the Jordanian desert where they will eat, sleep and train together in punishingly hot conditions without allowances for their celebrity status or gender.

Chief Instructor Ant Middleton is once again joined by Ollie Ollerton and two new Directing Staff, Jamie “Jay” Morton and Anthony “Staz” Stazicker.

With a combined half-century of Special Forces experience between them, their mission is to break down each recruit and rebuild them to be the best versions of themselves, determining who, if any, have what it takes to be selected as a fellow SAS soldier.

Over 10 brutal days and nights, the recruits will live in grim camp conditions. Drop toilets, one bucket of cold water to shower with daily, unappealing rations and stretcher beds over a sand floor. Sleep-deprived and missing the comforts of home, they’ll endure scorching desert heat across the day and the freezing cold of night.

Each day, they’ll suffer through two tasks that will push them to their limits physically and mentally and beyond what they thought they were capable of. If the pain is too much to bear, they can voluntarily withdraw from the course. Some will sustain injuries and be medically withdrawn, and some will last 10 days.

Throughout the course, each recruit will tell their story behind the headlines and open up to their personal and emotional struggles, learning more about themselves and leaving behind the pain of the past.

SAS Australia is produced by Screentime, a Banijay Group company, based on a Minnow Films format.