As November comes to a close, Black Friday deals now behind us, this week sees yet another new Netflix number one series rise to the top of the streaming service (in both the UK and USA – it's that popular). It's a Netflix Original gameshow derived from the original series of Korean classic Squid Game – a show that was wildly popular during lockdown, the legacy of which clearly lives on.
However, while Squid Game: The Challenge is certainly proving popular in viewer numbers, the critics are less than generous in their reviews – with the show landing a mere 44% on Rotten Tomatoes (the well-established review aggregator site). Seems harsh? Many of you agree, as the very same site shows the all-important audience score is double that figure, at 88% positive (at the time of writing, at least).
Squid Game: The Challenge echoes the original show's premise: 456 'players' are entered into various games in which they must survive. In between those games – in the original show players are actually killed; the gameshow version instead gives them an explosive inky end, to mimic a gunshot, and the players have to play dead (however reluctantly) – they are housed in an open-prison-like sleeping quarters.
You can see how that translates well for TV: many are comparing The Challenge to Big Brother – the fly-on-the-wall series, which commenced in the UK way back in 2000, as a social experiment – and while I can understand the comparisons, Squid Game: The Challenges's five episodes format [edit: a second part of five episodes commences 29 November, totalling 10 episodes overall] means you'll see breakout characters inevitably come and go. For me it's the games and the tactics that are most interesting to watch.
Semi spoiler alert though: you will have wanted to see the original Squid Game to get a really good understanding of what's coming. The original games from the series are well reproduced in the gameshow (with a few big changes, likely on health and safety grounds) and tastefully shot and edited. I know from the production team that it was a mammoth task tracking and capturing those 456 players, and it plays out well on screen.
All in all, I think it's great to see the best streaming services continue to deliver variety: while Netflix's recent price rise was questioned by many, so long as shows such as Squid Game: The Challenge continue to give us all reason to watch then I'll continue to pay – especially going into the Christmas period, when I'm sure there'll be plenty of classics also appearing. Despite the Netflix password crackdown, I won't be unsubscribing any time soon...
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Mike is T3's Tech Editor. He's been writing about consumer technology for 15 years and his beat covers phones – of which he's seen hundreds of handsets over the years – laptops, gaming, TV & audio, and more. There's little consumer tech he's not had a hand at trying, and with extensive commissioning and editing experience, he knows the industry inside out. As the former Reviews Editor at Pocket-lint for 10 years where he furthered his knowledge and expertise, whilst writing about literally thousands of products, he's also provided work for publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Metro, and more.
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