The following contains vague spoilers for Squid Game: The Challenge episodes 1-9. The finale releases on Netflix December 6.
Like nearly everyone on the planet, I watched Squid Game two years ago when it came out on Netflix. Though I liked the concept and found the first couple of episodes decently entertaining, it soon became clear that unlike other recent dystopian class dramas—Parasite, The Platform—Squid Game didn’t have anything to say. It was, in my opinion, the worst kind of art: art that thinks itself oh so much smarter than it actually is.
This was most obvious in the lack of writing. By about 3 episodes in, it’s painfully obvious who are the main characters and, thereby, who is going to stick around a while. And they do. They all improbably live despite the situations they face until they die, one by one, at exactly the moments you expect them to. It’s the worst example of “plot armor” I’ve ever seen put to film. Except that it’s worse than that because there isn’t really a “plot” to Squid Game. It boils down to laziness on the part of the show and the writers not wanting to write anything new or interesting in the way of character as the show goes on.
The other worst thing about Squid Game was the pointless side stories—about that one guy and his brother? and the bit about the billionaires or whatever betting on the results. These were lame attempts at building out an already paper-thin world and, though they did pad the run time, they made much of the back half of the show damn near unwatchable.
I didn’t write for Scribe or get much chance to tear apart Squid Game back in 2021, so I had to do so briefly here.
I’m happy to report that The Challenge version of the show successfully dodges nearly all of these pitfalls. Obviously, it does away with the pointless world-building B-plots from the show. This makes it drag a lot less, though I still got bored during some of the kibbitzing between players. But I want to commend the show on its lack of “plot armor.” There are people that seem likely to stick around for a while that are dismissed relatively quickly, and many of the people that do make it to the end barely get a moment of camera time in the early episodes. There were many moments when I was genuinely surprised about an elimination. I want to commend the show for successfully capturing the potential shock value of the premise far better than Squid Game ever did.
I also want to commend The Challenge for adding some games and elements that made the experience of watching it more interesting. There’s quite a lot here in terms of social psychology. Often the show makes players pick who to eliminate, a choice that usually proves harder than you might expect. The nature of the experience causes them to form some genuine bonds. It should be noted that the vast majority of participants who make it decently far are likeable people. There are a few assholes and a couple that mess with the team ethos on occasion, but most of them are really likable. When you have a lot of participants that you only barely know, this helps make the show worth watching.
It features most of the Squid Game challenges you—and the players—know and expect, but with a few twists. Tug of War is a significantly different, and I think far more interesting, version of the game. The many elimination opportunities that exist apart from the core games also make it feel fresh at least most of the time.
I mentioned how The Challenge successfully gets around the plot armor problem of Squid Game, but it’s worth mentioning further how The Challenge proves parts of the show to be exceedingly poorly thought out. The best example of this is Glass Bridge. At this point in both Squid Game and The Challenge, only a few players remain. Before the players are two lines of glass tiles. In each set of tiles, one is safe and one will fall through. In Squid Game the 16 players attempt to cross a bridge 18 tiles long. An almost statistically impossibly low number—3—of them make it through. In The Challenge, 20 players confront a bridge that’s 17 tiles long. And 12 of them make it. Because, mathematically speaking, that’s about how many should make it: a 50/50 proposition confronted 17 times should eliminate about 50% of the total or, 8.5. They actually get a little bit unlucky, I think, but go find someone more mathematically inclined than I am to prove that.
*I’m not great at math, but I think your odds most times are slightly greater than 50/50 given that many possibilities—for example, 7 left tiles in a row being safe—aren’t going to be used.
The point is you’d expect around half the players to make it. Given that the Squid Game version featured 2 more sets of tiles than players, let’s say they get a little unlucky and it’s slightly below half. That’s still 6 or 7 players, not 3, and seeing this math play out in The Challenge was satisfying. It was a nice feeling to have the stupidity of Squid Game’s writing proved in front of my eyes.
The Challenge is not a perfect reality show by any stretch, but it’s more interesting than I expected it to be. The contestants are more likeable, and it doesn’t feel as crass as I feared. The contestants are average people—not burdened with crippling debt or in precarious life circumstances. Typical of reality or game show contestants, they want the prize money to start businesses, leave inheritance for family, etc. Now, there is still something obscene about giving 4.56 million dollars to one person and not, say, 100k to 45 people, but that’s a general issue with gameshows. The point being, I feared that this would feel crass, commercial and exploitative and it really doesn’t. With average likeable people for whom this truly is not life or death, Squid Game: The Challenge feels a lot like every other reality show or game show out there. This makes it entertaining enough to be worth watching but nothing too special.
In all honestly, my favorite thing about it is how it proves what I’ve known all along: that Squid Game was an incredibly poorly written show. But I’ve had some fun with The Challenge.
