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I know what youre thinking.
Believe me, I thought so too.
Nobody dies in the real-world game show, of course, but the effort is terrifyingly cynical nevertheless.
Its hard not to feel queasy about the death of irony when confronted with this enterprise.
That reality television itself is an artifact of late-stage capitalism only underscores the point.
It takes its time getting there, however.
As the show eases into its introduction, snippets of confessionals begin to form the backbone of its storytelling.
Whos not in debt?
Im not getting paid at work for this.
(There are drawbacks to the approach, of course.
Unfamiliar faces often provoke awho?response.)
This is where the reality show finds its texture as an unconventional adaptation ofSquid Game.
Unbelievably,The Challengeextracts many of those same ideas from the reality-show format.
Players might believe they deserve to win, but the system is ultimately indifferent to their story.
Hell is people working in a system designed to turn them against each other.
The sheer scale of the new series provides a storytelling challenge.
Whats immediately arresting is the spectacle.
Not every aspect of the adaptation works cleanly, though.
Lets be clear about this.Squid Game: The Challengeis a venal creation.
(Critics were not given the last episode ofThe Challengefor preview.)
In that sense,Squid Game: The Challengeisnt just a good reality show.
Its a morally righteous one.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the number of contestants and amount of prize money.
