Two questions come to your mind when you start watching the “The Squid Game: The Challenge». The first is inevitable and is solved after 10 minutes, once the now iconic test dummy Red Light, Green Light “chase” the first players and discover that the bullets are made of paint. No, no one is going to die in this adaptation.

This was something that its creators had clarified during its presentation, as if it were necessary, although it might happen at some point. The second question lingers in the back of our minds throughout the contest. Is this the great stuff Netflix was referring to?

The success of “The Squid Game” was somewhat remarkable and came as a surprise even to Netflix itself. A local product, which seemed incomprehensible outside of South Korea, became the most popular content on the platform and, perhaps most importantly, the subject of endless discussion. Critics weren’t particularly enthused, the sets were shabby and the script flawed, but it exuded originality and a refreshing boldness among so many productions that seem to have been produced on the basis of a market study.

The paradox stems from the fact that its creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, designed it as an allegory of modern capitalist society, and now it has become the ultimate commercial product, part of the system as well.

It is the most ambitious reality show ever filmed, according to the production. There are 456 contestants from around the world – though it soon becomes clear that, as usual, ‘the whole world’ refers to the area from Washington to Florida plus a few Commonwealth countries – who aspire to claim the biggest prize that ever awarded on television: $4.56 million. The secret of the production is that everything is “bigger”, but at no point does it seem to matter if it’s better!

The copy is perfect and this is evident in the games setting, the uniforms of the participants and guards, the killer doll and the Dalgona cookies. However, it fails to convey what a dose of morality cannot: the desperation that drove ordinary people to risk their lives for money. The contestants are the main attraction of any reality show and here, too, they follow the beaten path.

There was no lack of accusations of fraud and complaints about the conditions of the tests. The scandal-mongering newspaper ‘The Sun’ wrote an article, in which it was claimed that some contestants came close to death from hypothermia. Filming coincided with a cold spell in the UK, the location chosen for the programme.

Netflix was quick to downplay the matter and assured that it was “deeply concerned” for the health and safety of the cast and crew. Indeed, at least in the episodes that the media had a chance to see before the premiere (the first five, the ones released this Wednesday – on the 29th of the month will be released another four and on the 6th of December the final episode), the challenges seemed so insignificant we might as well be watching a reality show about the Durrells.

The noise made about the supposed seriousness of the tests seems more like a clever publicity stunt to draw attention to a product that tries to appear much more than it actually is.

That “Squid Game: The Challenge” tries to convince us that we’re about to see something we’ve never seen before, but the trials are no more entertaining than any episode of Takeshi’s Castle.