Netflix Greenlights ‘Squid Game’ Reality Competition Series, Completely Misses the Crux of the Show

Netflix is not only approaching irrelevance, it’s making a mad sprint towards it like a giant doll is about to turn around and start shooting at it. The streaming behemoth has already lost subscribers by constantly jacking up its rates. Then it made us wait three years for the fourth season of Stranger Things. Now, the company has announced a new reality competition series based on the hit 2021 South Korean drama Squid Game.

In case you’ve been offline for the past year, Squid Game, the story of a group of down-on-their-luck people who enter a game competition that has consequences beyond their wildest nightmares, became Netflix’s most popular series after only 12 days on the streamer.

Now, a new reality series titled Squid Game: The Challenge is in the works. It’s billed as “the biggest reality competition series ever.” Its cast will be the largest in reality TV history – 456 contestants – and so will its lump-sum cash prize – a cool $4.56 million, the same amount players fought to the death for in the original show.

“Contestants will go through a series of games inspired by the original show, plus new additions, which are all intended to test their strategies, alliances and character as others are eliminated around them,” Variety reported.

If you want to apply, you can do so here:

Do you want to play a game? Enter to join Squid Game: The Challenge at https://t.co/MaXfZnqmvb pic.twitter.com/6gYLXlplDC

— Netflix (@netflix) June 14, 2022

There’s just one crucial difference (we assume) between the drama and the reality series: no one is going to get murdered at the end of each round, or offed by their competitors, like they did in the show…which kind of takes the tension out of the whole premise.

Look, we don’t need people to die in order to be entertained. (The world is violent enough as it is and there’s nothing entertaining about it.) But if you eliminate the X factor that kept us all on the edge of our seats, and made the stakes so high for the players, then all you have is another cheesy game show that no one wants to watch unless they’re self-isolating with Covid, and even then, meh.

Oh, Netflix. It was nice knowing you. We predict your days are as numbered as those of the players in the original Squid Game.

Cover Photo: Netflix