Any time a fugitive dropped a breadcrumb – by making a phone call or crossing in front of a CCTV camera or withdrawing cash from an ATM (each pair had $200 in cash and $300 in the bank for their 21 days) – the team could request access to that footage or information in order to try to locate them. (Because the producers don’t have authority to actually request that footage, it is reproduced on the run by having the camera operator place a Go-Pro where the closed-circuit camera would be, using a selfie stick. That footage is then uploaded via WhatsApp, and is available to the team at HQ within minutes.)

“Sometimes we got information back, sometimes we didn’t, sometimes it took longer,” says Craig, a former agent with the Australian Federal Police who led the investigation into the 2005 Bali bombings. “That was tough. And it was very realistic.”

Though the hunt had rules, including downtime overnight for both pursuers and escapees, everyone worked 10-hour days, seven days a week for the 21 days of the shoot.

“The fugitives are all broken biscuits at the end of it,” he says. “And so are the hunters, because we’re all busting our chops to get our respective objectives.

“I think a lot of people watching it will go, ‘Oh, this would be easy’,” he adds of the challenge of evading capture. “Then when it starts I think they’ll be surprised at the things law enforcement can do to track you and how hard it is actually to cover your tracks.”

Some of the fugitives appear to be winging it completely from the get-go. Not so West Australians Jake Rozario and Rob Harneiss, a policeman and a hairdresser respectively.

It was Harneiss’ idea to apply for the show – he’d seen the UK version and fancied his chances – and Rozario simply went along because “I’d do anything for my best mate”. And it was the hairdresser rather than the copper who came armed with a game plan – and a whole heap of gear to aid their chances.

“I think we had like 40 kilograms of hair and make-up in backpacks,” says Harneiss. “I had a lot of vacuum-sealed bags, they were all itemised with everything that was in the bags, all the different disguises. A big part of our game plan was to hide in plain sight.”

Within minutes of the mass breakout from Melbourne’s Federation Square that kicks off the first episode, the pair have changed from their drop clothes into high-vis workwear, with false hair and moustaches. “A good wig can get you a long way,” says Rozario, who concedes that they nonetheless thought they’d blown their chances within the first 30 minutes.

“Early on, we were pretty poor. We found it very, very difficult to get anybody to help us.”

While Harneiss is adept at making small talk from behind the hairdressing chair, Rozario’s interactions with strangers in his day job tend to have a different energy. “When I approach people at work [as a policeman] they generally don’t want to talk to me,” he admits. “I definitely had to learn a lot in terms of the way I approached people. Early on we probably had two people help us out of 20, but we got a lot better at it over time.”

With so little by way of resources and with the hunters having access to contacts and likely hideouts, convincing strangers to help is key to surviving in this game. But what does the willingness of people to lend a hand to strangers who introduce themselves as fugitives say about us as a culture? That the Ned Kelly spirit is alive and well?

“I realised there are a lot of people out there that are willing to help you and that are good people,” says Rozario. They may have, theoretically at least, been helping criminals but, he adds, “I loved it when we were getting the help. It was the best thing ever.”

Should this show strike a chord with viewers and give rise to more seasons, Harneiss has a tip for future competitors. “Retirees are the best help ever. Honestly, they are so cautious about everything, everything’s a conspiracy, so they’re great people to help you.”

After five seasons on the UK version and one in the US, cyber expert (and former sniper) Ben Owen thought he was done with Hunted after leaving the show just before COVID-19 hit. But the lure of Australia proved too great for Owen, who signed on as head of intelligence and claims this season is the most intense he’s worked on, with an expanded number of fugitives and a compressed time period.

As someone who advises businesses and high-net-worth individuals how to stay safe online, he has an ambivalent attitude towards the amount of information available to surveillance operatives in real life. “I am a big privacy advocate,” he says. “I believe you have a private life for a reason – that’s why we have curtains on the windows, a door on the toilet.”

Proportionate access to data, on solid legal grounds, is appropriate, he says, and in the post-Snowden and WikiLeaks era, people are unlikely to be surprised that police and security forces can access it. But, he adds, “I think people will have a reality check when they see how accurate, how fast and just how much information every day is traceable”.

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Should viewers be worried then, or comforted? “The ones who have nothing to hide will feel comforted,” says Owen. “Those on the wrong side of the law might start changing their passwords, look at multifactoral authentication and start chucking their phones in the river.”