“People like the blood and guts,” says Raph, a wry 55-year-old carpenter from east London. “They’re going to want to know what went wrong.” Sitting next to him is Anton, 42, an imposing boatman. “We had the opportunity to show some of humanity’s strengths, when we really showed a lot of society’s weaknesses.”

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The pair are survivors of Eden, Channel 4’s much-trumpeted social experiment-cum-reality show. In March 2016, 23 people selected for their specific skills (doctor, shepherdess, plumber and so on) were sent to a stretch of shoreline in the Highlands and given basic tools and supplies to build a self-sufficient community, cut off from society for a year.

The outside world received its first dispatch last July, whereupon things quickly went awry on and off screen. Ratings tumbled from 1.7 million to 800,000 over four episodes as the community splintered. Having launched the series by asking: “What if we could start again?”, Channel 4 executives could have been forgiven for wondering the same.

Eden’s social media accounts went silent and a year passed with no updates. Rumours that the series had been canned were refuted by the broadcaster and, on 23 March this year, the survivors – all 10 of them – emerged. What on earth happened?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anton, who says he struggled with depression and anxiety early on in the series. Photograph: Channel 4

“It became so different to what we imagined,” says the broadcaster’s commissioning editor, Ian Dunkley. “We wanted to focus on the strongest stories and characters, and we could only be sure of that once the year had played out. I don’t think anyone expected it to go as feral and dark as it did.”

This is not mere marketing spiel. Five new episodes document bullying, cliques, fistfights and even outright revolt as male boorishness descended into disturbing misogyny. Some women were picked on for their perceived physical weakness and advised to stick to basic chores while a few male hunter-gatherers did the manual labour. It was claimed that the men controlling access to food were threatening to “starve them out”.

It’s still raw as hell. I feel shaky every time I think about watching it Katie, 31

Raph, one of Eden’s cussedly independent spirits, acknowledges the schism. “Hunger was a big issue. If I’m doing the work and you’re not, and we’re going to eat the same meal, that fuels problems. You could see the changes in people, who’s siding up to who to make sure they’re going to get fed, who’s going to go without.”

He looks sheepish. “I went in wanting to help everyone and share my skills, but that turned into: if I do this for you, I can get that…”

By the time we see a moonshine-fuelled birthday party with a caveman theme and one woman is asked: “How do you feel about anal?”, “dark” and “feral” seem like understatements.

Certainly, none of Eden’s women came out unscathed. For Katie at least, talking about it is cathartic.

“It’s still raw as hell,” says the 31-year-old artist and marine conservationist. “I feel nervous and shaky every time I think about watching it. I live among crofters and I’ve worked with the military but I’ve never been limited by gender, so it was a shock.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest From left: Robert, Andrew, Lloyd, Jasmine, Matt, Stephen, Tara, Caroline, Rachel, Josie, Robert P, Katie, Raphael, Jenna, Tom, Jane, Jack, Ali, Oli, Glenn, Sam, Ben and Anton. Photograph: Channel 4

“What that group of boys had in common was insecurity, a need to prove themselves with a show of ego and arrogance to hide their emotions and nervousness. They didn’t have the emotional literacy of boys like Rob [the community vet who became Katie’s boyfriend] – he cried when a baby lamb was born. He’s slightly traumatised by the whole thing [Eden] and prefers not to talk about it.”

It was not just the women who suffered as the idyll soured. Community outcast-cum-scapegoat Anton retreated to the woods to build his own cabin as the same faction looked to, as Katie puts it, “pick off the vulnerable”.

“I did struggle with depression and anxiety early on,” says Anton, his sanguine nature belied by the haunted look in his eyes. “But I saw it as a job, an amazing opportunity that was mine to take, not throw away. Walking out crossed my mind, but with every person that left, I’d get stronger – it was like I’d beaten them.”

While this competitive element pulled Anton through, it also made building a functioning community almost impossible. “The idea of survival was one of our biggest problems,” Katie says.

“Some of us thought it might test how we could live closer to nature, others looked at it as a competition. People were trying to prove how tough they were rather than investing time in finding the usefulness of others and helping them through it.

“At the beginning, a lot of the men went for the macho jobs, chopping logs and building stuff, whereas the gardening was ‘women’s work’ – no glory but a daily trudge. They said we were lazy, and these weird words like ‘efficiency’ and ‘cull’ were used. Eventually, if the group thinks something’s OK, it becomes OK.”

The integrity of the project rested on the community being left to its own devices. Series producer Liz Foley insists they would have stepped in “if someone had been in mortal danger or was desperately traumatised”, yet should the moral imperative to intervene have taken precedence over the professional one to simply document events? It was a dilemma 43-year-old Jane, one of four embedded camera crew, felt keenly.

“Part of my job was to maintain relationships so I could get the story,” she explains. “If I had said how I felt as a community member, I would have shut down barriers to people. As a woman, I regret not feeling able to stand up for what I believed in 100%. As a professional cameraperson, I’m quite proud. But I struggle with that on a daily basis.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jane: ‘I hope this becomes a national conversation.’ Photograph: Channel 4

For all its highfalutin ambition, perhaps Eden, like so many reality shows before it, simply boils down to another unedifying demonstration of how horrible human beings can be to each other. So what is the value in watching it?

Eden is undoubtedly a series for its times, where bullies shout down experts and conversation is infected with mansplaining and “banter”, where prime ministers talk about “boy jobs” and “girl jobs” and misogyny surfaces everywhere from our national broadcaster to, it seems, remote Scottish communities.

Of course, Eden lacked the established laws, governmental mechanisms and mixed demographics (Jane and Anton were the only fortysomethings, Raph the only Edenite over 50) of the real world that might have checked the truly revolting behaviour. Yet the picture it paints of modern manhood is an indubitably dispiriting one.

As a woman, I regret not feeling able to stand up for what I believed in 100% Jane, series camera operator

“Strip everything back and perhaps people go to areas of their psyche they didn’t know they had,” muses Jane. “It’s sickening that it’s 2017 and we still have these attitudes. I hope this becomes a national conversation, because it does shine a light on where we’re at. We’ve got so much further to go and so much more work to do.”

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It wasn’t all bad. For Anton, Eden provided “an opportunity for me to see if I had developed into the person I am now, much better than the person I used to be”. Raph has a new perspective on life: “I wake up every morning with a smile on my face. I know I can survive anything.”

Jane delighted herself by “digging deep”, getting through it and learning unlikely skills including tree-felling and fire-starting. Katie built a house, met her boyfriend and argues the programme serves a vital purpose. “It’s fascinating as an anthropological experiment: how we live, struggles for power, for food, for sex … If you want to see how human beings work, that’s it.”

Startlingly, all four maintain that it is still possible to start again. “Because otherwise,” says Jane, “humanity’s doomed.”