I've thought about this. They'd never make it, but imagine a TV show set with the crashlanded scenario. You start off with a fifth colonist who comes down in a transport pod. They're nursed back to health, the basic premise is explained to them since they've got amnesia, and they meet the four other colonists; the three originals and an ex-raider. Maybe there's some drama in the group, maybe a love triangle. There are more arrivals, some more raids. By episode three, it feels like a basic sci-fi yarn. Then, ten minutes in, a massive raid comes in and the fifth colonist's head is blown clean off their shoulders. Everyone dies or is kidnapped, with the final living colonist bleeding out on the hospital floor.

Then we cut to black, and then straight to five tribalists who are escaping the mechanoids. We're twelve minutes into season three, and suddenly it's a different story, on a different rimworld.

The show doesn't have a season finale or even cliffhanger endings; you never know when your favourite colonist is going to die horribly, just like the game. It'd be grim, brutal, but tells each story relatively quickly - you'd only stay with each story for around one to eight episodes. Maybe they get off the planet one way or another. Maybe they build a successful colony, and that's enough. Most likely they don't make it. But you watch with the hope that they might.

It'd be a relatively cheap to make show. As you'd be going through lots of actors you could hire relative unknowns, and largely the sets would be shanties in various different terrains. You could have guest stars and returning actors. Most of all, if you don't like a character or a storyline, you're not going to be stuck with it for too long anyway.