SAS Australia season two to return in 2021, but where?

Those of us who waited on the edge of our seats for new episodes of SAS Australia each Monday and Tuesday evening will be wondering what to do now that the show has ended.

The good news is the Seven Network has confirmed its popular military style reality television show will be back.

Filming of season two is on track to begin in late autumn/early winter in 2021 and air towards the end of next year.

The question is, which unrelenting location will the recruits be sent to next time?

The first season pushed 17 Australian celebrities to their limits in the NSW Snowy Mountains to see if they had what it took to join one of the toughest special forces units in the world.

The Snowies provided the perfect backdrop while recruits were thrown into ice-cold lakes and ran marathons across rugged terrain and through snow for hours on end.

Lake Jindabyne and Perisher featured in the show, and a secluded farm and shearing shed in the Bobundara district, about 40 minutes from Jindabyne, was converted into a remote training compound.

At the compound, recruits had to cut their own wood to maintain two fires to dry their kits with each day, and it had an open shower and toilet that offered no privacy.

The Snowies could be on the cards for season two of SAS Australia, however the Seven Network says it is exploring various locations.

We know the Snowies weren’t the first choice for the show’s producers, who previously planned to shoot SAS Australia in New Zealand. However, that idea was flipped on its head when COVID-19 restrictions shut down travel.

The producers could travel outside of NSW now that borders are reopening, however the show will likely be filmed in Australia again given the ongoing restrictions and the fact filming is due to start relatively soon.

Putting the celebrities through their paces in season one was an elite team of ex-special forces soldiers, including chief instructor Ant Middleton and his directing staff, Mark ‘Billy’ Billingham, Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox and Ollie Ollerton.

The crew will also appear in season two and are currently appearing in the British version of the series, which premiered after the SAS Australia finale on 24 November, and will air again on the Seven Network on Monday, 30 November, at 7:30 pm.

During the 12 episodes of season one, we witnessed recruits tasked with retrieving hostages at gunpoint, surviving questioning while submerged in freezing water, abseiling from 50m high while their partners held onto the ropes and running for kilometres while carrying 50kg backpacks.

However, the final two episodes of SAS Australia were by far the most brutal, with the final recruits thrown into simulated combat and captivity.

Miss Universe Australia Erin McNaught quit after falling too far behind a gruelling combat course that represented a relentless battlefield and required recruits to repeatedly wade through five-degrees-Celsius water, climb up steep inclines and crawl under logs and through mud.

That left former rugby union player Nick ‘Honey Badger’ Cummins, comedian Merrick Watts, AFL player Sabrina Frederick, former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen and rally car champion Molly Taylor to battle it out in the last episode.

Split into two teams, the remaining five participants had to escape captivity and navigate their way to a rendezvous at nighttime while avoiding barking dogs, gunmen and motorbikes.

While one of the teams successfully arrived at the rendezvous, everyone was captured again and subjected to nine hours of captivity and interrogation listening to stressful sounds including babies crying and pigs squealing. The cold room and sounds were enough for Molly Taylor after a few hours.

The final task sent the remaining four contestants running through creeks and across rugged terrain while carrying one another to meet a helicopter that would take them home.

All of the final recruits made it, however only Cummins, Frederick and Watts made the SAS selection.

James Magnussen didn’t quite have what it took to join the SAS, according to Ant Middleton, but was told he should be proud of making it to the end.

According to the Seven Network, recruits had fractured ribs, hypothermia and stitches as a result of the show. They got through 275 band-aids, 65m of strapping tape, 957 alcohol swabs and required four MRIs.