Netflix’s ‘The Squid Game’ reality show goes awry: “The conditions were absolutely inhumane”

It seems that Netflix has gotten out of hand reality show from ‘The Squid Game’. Before the Korean series —which became an unprecedented global phenomenon in 2021— returns with a second season of ‘The Squid Game’, we will have a version in the form of reality, in which real contestants will face each other in a series of games like those in fiction; only, in this case, they will not be lethal, of course. But that doesn’t mean that the show’s candidates are going to be completely free of danger: apparently, the production of the reality It has been carried out in conditions that some anonymous participants have called “inhumane”.

participants of the reality show the squid game they say the contest is rigged

In 2022 we learned that Netflix intended to squeeze the success of ‘The Squid Game’ and liven up the wait until the premiere of its second season with a reality show called ‘The Squid Game: The Challenge’. Like the twisted contest of the original series, the reality it also has 456 participants who compete against each other in a series of children’s games to get a loot. In the case of the program, the sum of the grand prize is somewhat less than that of fiction, but still not insignificant: 4.56 million dollars.

From the beginning, the platform made it clear that the worst thing that could happen to a contestant on the reality It was going home empty-handed. However, several informants have made it known to different media that, without ever reaching the extremes of ‘El juego del squid’, the conditions in which the program has been filmed have not been the most desirable.

The “inhumane conditions” of the reality of the squid game from Netflix:low temperatures, fainting, injuries…

Zero-degree temperatures, untimely recording schedules, long periods of time immobile, injuries… The contestants —who did not get paid to participate in the reality— have given an account of the difficulties they have had to face during the filming of the program. According to one fountainat least ten participants in ‘The Squid Game: The Challenge’ they passed out only on the first day of shooting, possibly due to cold and fatigue after eight hours waiting for games to start, and required assistance from set doctors on several occasions.

“This is not The last survivor”, complained a British player, identified only as John. “If they had told us it was going to be that cold, none of us would have gone ahead.” Another contestant from the United Kingdom, Marlene, assured that the experience in the set It wasn’t “as extreme as people say, but definitely not as minimal as Netflix would have you believe. We don’t sign up for survivors. The conditions were absolutely inhumane and had nothing to do with the games.”

In addition, other former contestants claim that the game is rigged. According to them, some influential contestants were shortlisted to proceed to the next rounds of the games regardless of the results obtained in the previous tests. A number of contestants claim to have been eliminated by the show’s producers minutes after crossing the finish line of the test, theoretically securing their passage to the next phase. Others, however, discovered that Netflix had already booked their return flights from London (where the film was filmed). reality) before the games themselves began, proving that their elimination in the tests was planned from the beginning. “It wasn’t really a contest,” recounted one of these anonymous participants. “It was a TV show and we were extras.”