I've just been watching a programme called 'Lost' which, in the UK, is presently shown on the Adventure channel. A number of pairs of contestants are flown to a location somewhere in the world, and then taken by helicopter to a remote area, with basic survival provisions and a cameraman. They have to find out where they are and somehow get to New York, the first to get there wins $200,000.
In the present series they are actually dropped in central Mongolia, and on the programme I've just watched a couple of teams found this out pretty quickly from a rubbish pile with bottle labels, etc. Another team thought they were in Czechoslavakia!
What I'm curious about is how did the programme makers get a quite large group of people into a country like Mongolia - or anywhere else for that matter - without them formally passing through Customs, getting passports stamped, letting the Customs officers see them, and all the other essential security checks involved in entering another country?
All the contestants are athletic, good looking, young men and women, and I just cannot see how they could enter Mongolia in the apparent secrecy required by the programme. Is the programme just a 'fix' or does anyone have an explanation?

[edited to differentiate from the US TV program]

Are you sure they didn't pass them through customs (after maybe explaining what was going on and putting blindfolds on the people or just having them taken to special rooms for private customs inspections) and it just wasn't seen on the show?

Sounds like a neat program, however! The way US television has been lately, we should get a version of it soon.

I've travelled to quite a number of so called 3rd world countries, and just can't imagine any of them allowing blindfolded or otherwise secretive people to enter - and IMHO they'd be absolutely right too.
I seriously doubt if any 'Western' government would allow it either, especially since 9/11. Maybe Mongolia made a special arrangement, but it does seem pretty strange.
It's not a bad programme except, inevitably I suppose, the contestants just have to be handsome 'beefy' young men and attractive skimpily clad young women - another reason why, to me at least, the programme seems somewhat unrealisic - though possibly I've just whetted your appetite to see it even more!
Oh, and all the contestants appear to be American, so no doubt the series is, has been, or will be shown on a U.S. TV network.

Maybe they were blindfolded, led into some kind of booth at customs for the necessary checks, and then blindfolded afterwards again? Sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn't it?

That "Lost" is an American show from 2000 or so. It was based on an older British show; I'm not sure if that had the same name.

The producers of the current American "Lost" were, I hear, a bit worried about their show being confused with the reality one, but this doesn't seem to be a problem since apparently very few people remember it.