The Monastery is a reality television

Reality television

Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...

 series originally made in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 in 2005. The format

TV program format

A TV format describes the overall concept, premise and branding of a copyrighted television program.The format is licensed by TV networks, so that they may produce a version of the show tailored to their nationality and audience. Formats are a major part of the international television market...

 involves a number of individuals, who are not necessarily religious, spending a period of time in a place of religious retreat. It has since been copied for UK sequels and in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

United Kingdom

The UK series The Monastery

The Monastery (BBC TV series)

The Monastery was a documentary television series made by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Two which aired in the UK in May 2005. The programme follows five modern lay men as they embark on a 40 day and night introduction to Roman Catholic monastic life at Worth Abbey, West Sussex, England under...

was filmed at Worth Abbey

Worth Abbey

The Abbey of Our Lady, Help of Christians, commonly known as Worth Abbey, is a community of Roman Catholic monks who follow the Rule of St Benedict near Turners Hill village, in West Sussex, England....

 and first transmitted in 2005-6. Produced by Tiger Aspect for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, it won the Merit Award for Religious Programming in the prestigious Sandford St. Martin Trust

Sandford St. Martin Trust

The Sandford St. Martin Trust is a United Kingdom-based religious charity established in 1978 that promotes excellence in religious broadcasting...

 Awards in 2006.

The series was re-broadcast by other television network

Television network

A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...

s. The BBC commissioned follow-up series entitled The Monastery Revisited; The Convent, in which four women spent 40 days in a Convent of the Poor Clares; and The Retreat in 2007 in which a group of men and women lived together in a Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 school of prayer.

United States

The US version, also called The Monastery, was made by the Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

 and broadcast on TLC

TLC (TV channel)

TLC is an American cable TV specialty channel which initially focused on educational content. Since 1991 TLC has been owned by Discovery Communications, the same company that operates the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The Science Channel, as well as other learning-themed networks...

. It debuted on 22 October 2006 and aired on Sundays at 10:00 pm. In the first season, five men of various backgrounds who were facing personal crises volunteered to live at a Benedictine

Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

 monastery, the Monastery of Christ in the Desert

Monastery of Christ in the Desert

The Monastery of Christ in the Desert is a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery belonging to the English Province of the Subiaco Congregation of Benedictine monasteries....

 in northern New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, for 40 days.

Australia

ABC

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 in Australia made a similar series, The Abbey, in which five women spent 33 days living the life of an enclosed Benedictine nun.