"Launched with the sort of hype specially reserved for reality TV shows Cabin Fever, RTÉ’s planned summer schedule blockbuster from 2003, hit all the right spots, and at least one that didn’t figure in the plans. With Cabin Fever, the makers created a reality programme formula guaranteed to captivate the summer audiences. Yes indeed, competing for a prize of €100,000, ten diverse landlubber contestants would shiver our timbers as they ploughed their way round Ireland on a three-mast sail ship, Cabin Fever, performing various tasks and hoping to win the votes of the audience. The least popular contestant ran the weekly gauntlet of ritual eviction from the game by walking the plank. This reality show had it all: a beautiful photogenic ship; outdoor action and on-board intrigue. It was a live show hosted from various ports round the country, full of free wheeling and action packed adventure. But then it had an unscheduled meet and greet with the rocks off Tory Island in Donegal. This was when Cabin Fever really put the ‘reality’ into Reality TV, sinking on the notorious outcrops which encircle the Gaeltacht island. Thankfully all crew and contestants made it safely to shore. The national press had a field day. Paparazzi descended on Tory Island, with the ten contestants bunking down inside. Noelle Ní Dhubhchoin’s B&B became the centre of a tabloid media stake-out. A celebrity lawyer, a counsellor and the man from the Department of the Marine all flew in by helicopter. The contestants were sent home and the programme makers endeavoured to find a replacement ship to continue the series. Within weeks, Cabin Fever 2 picked up where its predecessor had left off. It was ‘game on’ again. Few reality TV shows had overcome such difficulty, or generated such publicity. If ‘Cabin Fever’ had done well in the ratings prior to Tory, it skyrocketed after. ‘Scannal’ re-visits the story, exploring what happened from a range of perspective