Whatever happens - do not accept the umbrella!

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2023 

#26 : Squid Game: The Challenge 

Hailed as the most epic reality show in history, with 456 players and the biggest prize ever offered up (that gleaming piggy bank hung on high, bulging with millions of dollars), cynics may have said that Squid Game: The Challenge could never live up to the Netflix K-drama that broke viewing records two years ago, or that it would empty it of its anti-capitalist sentiment. But within moments of watching, they’d be transfixed. The contestants started by playing the games from the show, before being forced into far more juicy and bitchy territory (minus the deaths of course.) Battleships! The glass bridge! The constant backstabbing! The nimbleness with which it switched between characters, made us care about the fates of 400 people and remained utterly compelling was a true feat of editing. A remarkable piece of television.

Skipping over #25 because we've already met it on The Guardian's list, I avoided the original Squid Game until forced to watch it for one of these lists and found it to be a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting. And guess what? I've avoided this because I think it will be a bit silly - but I suspect I'm going to be proved wrong.

Well, "Red Light, Green Light" (the doll game) is first up and it instantly does so - it's very well done and very tense and brutal. I particularly enjoyed the guy saying "there's only one thing I can I do" as though he's got some great plan - and he gets shot just as he finishes the sentence. I also liked the people who died properly when they were shot - you gotta enter into the spirit of these things and not just stand there whinging.

The sets are REALLY impressive and the camerawork is also really well done because there are a lot of contestants involved and you really get the impression that they've been following everyone (although I'm sure there's some judicious use of post shots involved). You don't need to have watched the initial show to get the idea as to what's going on here but it does give you some enjoyable background and makes some of the twists when they change things more enjoyable.

But...

...ten episodes was just too many - I got four episodes in and just didn't feel the need to invest that much more time in it. Each episode had too much padding with talking head sections that just weren't as interesting as they thought they were - they were trying too hard to make it like Big Brother whereas The Traitors bits were much more interesting. However, I did want to watch the games and see who won, so I watched the next six episodes with liberal use of the fast forward button and got them all done in about ninety minutes. Six (or possibly eight) episodes with a greater concentration of "action" (which was often just psychological tension) might have convinced me to stick with it properly.

Another reason for my struggle was the contestants - in the early stages there were just too many of them (and you definitely got the impression many people were simply there as cannon fodder). As time went on and you get to know some people better then you got more invested in some of them and the random nature of some of their "deaths" got to be quite a wrench and you could see how it affected the other contestants as well. But, by the time I gave up on it, there weren't any people around that I really cared if they won or not. Having said that, it was great when people you didn't like went - particularly (spoiler alert) Bryton who really thought he had it all worked out.

One final issue - I also objected to the overall prize money philosophy because I think no one person should be able to win that much money. Yes, I realise that's all part of raising the tension but it just didn't feel fair - especially given how many people went out on matters of complete chance. And amusingly, some people take it all very seriously applying all sorts of psychology which then have absolutely no impact on their immediate death. 

All in all, this is an obviously impressive piece of telly, but it didn't quite push the buttons it wanted to with me. It certainly isn't silly like I thought it would be - if anything it takes itself a little too seriously and maybe if I'd managed to convince myself to reach the same levels then I'd have stuck with it. But I didn't so I didn't - if you think you will, then you've probably already watched it already, but if it passed you by then it's on Netflix (and a second series will also be coming at some point). 

#24 - Too tense for me!
#27 - The high quality bar is raised further