The ‘Squid Game’ Reality Show is as Dystopian it Sounds-and Impossible to Stop Watching: TV Review
From the moment Reed Hastings tuned into an earnings call wearing a green-amd-white tracksuit, it was clear Netflix may have learner the wrong lessons from the success of “squid Game,” in 2021, the South Korean drama — created, written and directed by auteur Hwang Dong-hyuk—– became a surprise global sensation with a grim and violent allegory of capitalism exploiting the desperate many for the enjoyment of a wealthy few. Hastings, a rich and powerful tech founder, was closer to one of the titular game’s masked spectators than a contestant risking their life for a chance at the price, though he didn’t seem to see the irony.
This week, the contradictions only heighten with “Squid Game: The challenge,” a competition series that brings Hwang’s vision to life, minus tha mass murder and most of the social commentary. The show is Netflix’s latest answer to an enduring problem. Without legacy franchise of its own, the relatively young company has to work overtime to turn it’s home grown hits into durable wells or ip.” Squid Game” itself will get a Season 2 at some point next year, also helmed by Hwang, but brand-building has no time for quality control. “The Challenge” itself is just one part of a multi-pronged attempt to capitalize on the “Squid Game” phenomenon; next month, L.A. -area fans can enroll in “Squid Game: The trials ,” where they can pay for the privilege of pretending to debase themselves for a slim chance at erasing their debt. Reality TV and immersive “experience” are cheaper and faster to whip up than a scripted production, and both help to feed the beast over the long wait.
“Squid Game: The challenge” copies the structure and look of the original, narrowing down field of 456 contestant vying for $4.56 million with a series of childlike games. Part of what helped the first “Squid Game” transcend language barriers was it’s simple, colour” production design, which “The Challenge” recreates to a tee on a U.K. soundstage and M.C. Escher-like staircases are all present and accounted for, but they’re meant to contrast with the sinister, deadly nature of the tournament, where each “eliminated” (read: executed) contender means more money in the pot for the eventual victor. Like ” Battle Royale” and “The point of “The Challenge” is that, of you don’t think too hard about it, that entertainment is still pretty fun to watch.
“The Challenge” has an odd, indirect relationship with its inspiration. Contestant clearly recognize now-iconic sets like the arena for Red Light, Green Light, a race across a room without being caught in motion by a giant Robot doll. The group cheers when they see the signature bunk beds stacked to the ceiling, reference Korean terms like “gganbu” that ” Squid Game” helped popularize abroad, and have clearly been coached by producers to play dead when they’re knocked out, a brust of black paint swapped in for a bullet wound. ( The absence of a host or voiceover to explain the rules implies “The Challenge” expectes similar familiarity on the part of viewers. ) But beyond adding new games and twists to keep players on their toes, “The Challenge” doesn’t explicitly acknowledge that it’s cast members know these things because they saw them on TV.
Said cast members are the inarguable highlight of “The Challenge” On the one head, the show is distinguished by its scale. Even by the standards of modern reality, a genre always upping its own ante, “The Challenge” features an enormous pool of competitors, sourced from a vast array of places, competing for an astonishing sum of money. ( While players hell from location as diverse as America, Australia and Italy, “The Challenge” is Strictly Anglophone, in contrast with ” Squid Game” itself.) But as the show continues beyond its initial flex and can concentrate on a rapidly shrinking number of stars, “The Challenge” comes alive on a much more intimate scale.
Some participants seen well-shooled in the convention of reality mess; one labels their antagonist “a villain,” already conscious of the archetype they’ll be flattened into on our screen. Other, like a former newspaper editor who signed up with her own son or a doctor who reveals …
