The Massive Image
Squid Sport: The Problem is a shameless and opportunistic try by Netflix to capitalize on the success of the unique sequence, with no respect for the creator’s imaginative and prescient or themes. The truth present is merciless, exploitative, and handles all the things with a distasteful strategy, reveling within the contestants’ breakdowns for leisure. This sequence is morally bankrupt, missing any redeeming worth. It’s a disgraceful work that takes benefit of each the unique creators and the opponents.
Squid Sport: The Problem, Netflix’s actuality present based mostly on their very own hit sequence Squid Sport, was by no means going to be a good suggestion. After all, such a shameless and opportunistic try to capitalize on the incisive creativity of creator Hwang Dong-hyuk was not all that shocking contemplating the streamer by no means even paid him pretty regardless of the worth he created for them. So why wouldn’t they cannibalize the satire about capitalism by taking its imagery, musical cues, units, and costumes whereas spitting within the face of all of the themes he had been exploring? Respect for his imaginative and prescient and what he was getting at goes about so far as the cash they may make. When this actuality sequence was first introduced, it already felt doomed to be a stain compared to an in any other case nice present. What couldn’t have been predicted is that Squid Sport: The Problem is extra callous and merciless than even its many skeptics imagined.
Squid Sport: The Problem
Follows contestants as they compete in challenges based mostly on the Korean kids’s video games featured on the Squid Sport to win a $4.56 million money prize.
Launch Date November 22, 2023
Fundamental Style Actuality-TV
Genres Actuality-TV, Sport Present
Seasons 1
From the second the sequence begins, there may be already a way that you’re watching a weird nightmare that will be humorous if it weren’t so unhappy. Whereas actuality tv is not any stranger to preying upon individuals’s vulnerability by dangling a life-changing sum of money in entrance of them, it’s onerous to think about one which so totally creates the sensation that the shape itself was a mistake and ought to be burned to the bottom. Contestants will overtly speak about how they want cash to assist themselves or their household, which The Problem then exploits so as to add stakes to an imitation of a satire whose unique level was how incorrect one thing like that is. If somebody created a sequence a couple of world the place individuals must beg for his or her lives on GoFundMe and are then pitted in opposition to one another, that’s fairly near what the expertise of watching Squid Sport: The Problem is like. Keep in mind that viral video of lecturers having to scramble for cash for his or her college students at a sporting occasion? Squid Sport: The Problem is a present that noticed this and determined it may go decrease.
Why Does ‘Squid Sport: The Problem’ Exist?
Over the course of eight episodes out of a ten-episode season shared with critics, all the things in Squid Sport: The Problem is dealt with with a regularly distasteful strategy. Continuously, the opponents will turn out to be confused to the purpose of breaking down in tears. We’re proven such moments in closeups that really feel just like the equal of a vulture circling over a dying animal. The one distinction is that the vulture is looking for its personal survival, whereas this sequence is uniquely human in its cruelty. At one level, a competitor turns into so rattled about how a recreation goes that he begins shaking uncontrollably and teeters proper on the sting of throwing up. The sequence revels on this second, twisting the knife additional and additional so that you could’t look away from his breakdown. It performs upon your emotions of compassion after which simply retains exploiting them. When compounded by the financial struggles that persons are coming into the competitors with, it makes Squid Sport: The Problem downright disgusting to observe.
Though some compassionate individuals attempt to look out for one another, they’re preventing a shedding battle, as your entire factor is rotten from prime to backside. The contestants don’t deserve judgment, because the complete objective of the truth that knowledgeable the premise of the unique sequence is that individuals will do determined issues when pushed to the sting. As this can be a actuality present, antagonists are elevated so that there’s some type of battle to maintain issues transferring, however the actual villain of all of it is the sequence itself. If the corrupt forces of capitalism might be made right into a shambling corpse of tv, it will appear to be Squid Sport: The Problem. Every part drags on and on via numerous challenges which are spinoff of the unique sequence in all regards whereas additionally doing an entire disservice to what Squid Sport achieved.
There are supposedly “new” video games which are thrown in, however even these are taken from different locations, and when these conclude, the present simply retains going again to the inescapable actuality that it is making the most of the unique creators of the present, simply as it’s all the opponents. It actually appears like Squid Sport: The Chllange could be thought-about too on-the-nose if it popped up in a dystopian movie about how persons are exploited for leisure.
‘Squid Sport: The Problem’ Is Anti-Mental Drivel
Picture through Netflix
The broader subject with all of it is how the unique sequence was not only a good present by way of its storytelling, but it surely was an efficient satire as effectively. The Problem will not be like Squid Sport made for dummies, however for individuals who are actively hostile to any type of deeper reflection. Though it gestures at a number of the extra sophisticated questions lurking beneath its existence, that is merely lip service with none actual care or substance. All of the gimmicks it throws in on the margins cannot disguise how morally bankrupt it’s at its core. After we look again on the rise of streaming, Squid Sport: The Problem would be the present that noticed the fires of hell and determined to search out an much more craven low.
Ranking: F
Squid Sport: The Problem is obtainable to stream on Netflix within the U.S. beginning November 22.
WATCH ON NETFLIX