Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Artificial intelligence, physically represented as a life-size ghoul.
A chamber hidden in the jail cell where the two lowest-ranking players in each round are locked up overnight.
Does all that sound bonkers to the average American television viewer?
Theres nothing else like it.
The Devils Planwasnt the streamers most-watched unscripted Korean show in 2023.
Running 100 supremely athletic individuals through a series of intense physical challenges is pretty much the definition of hard-core.
They admire each others bodies even as they size up the competition.
Many are clearly pissed, but theyre restraining themselves.
But inPhysical: 100, the emotions are subtle and complicated.
Listen, these individuals arehot.
Unlike anything fromThe BachelororToo Hot to Handle, open conflict is rare between peacocking suitors.
Its not all emotional subtlety, of course.Siren: Surviving the Islandcelebrates guts-and-glory warfare by design.
Six teams of four women, all grouped by professions (stunt people, Olympians, cops, etc.
Much likeThe Devils Plan,Sirenruns on several overlapping game systems.
Bases are scattered around the island, each possessing different advantages and drawbacks.
The competition plays out in different phases, toggling between core Base Battles andSurvivor-immunity-style challenges.
Its excessively complicated, and the complexity often prevents seamless narrative flow.
WhereSurvivoris a social game masquerading as a survival show,Sirenis closer to straight-up combat.
Its a whole other layer in the synthesis of whats real and whats produced that defines reality television.
(That is, until the franchise was placed on indefinite hiatusfollowing the suicide of a cast member.
Again, every television culture comes with its own baggage.)
Yet Netflixs expansion into financing reality TV from different media cultures isnt just valuable in some token diversity sense.
(Surely you must have wondered why so many of the streamers originals look the same.)
But never say never.
But were increasingly living in Netflixs world, and the streamer has ambitions for further global domination.
We havent yet seen efforts to take what worksthereand flatten it down to workeverywhere.
