Children’s games, death by ink and a multimillion jackpot: The world of the Squid Game reality TV show
Reality TV has undergone plenty of changes in the last decade – from the end of stalwart Noughties shows, the much-needed emphasis on duty of care towards participants, and the genre’s pipeline to social media influencing.
Now Squid Game: The Challenge has landed on our screens and turned trusted formats upside down again.
Some 456 contestants from across the globe compete in children’s games based on Netflix‘s smash-hit South Korean thriller for a $4.56m jackpot (£3.64m) – thought to be the largest single cash prize ever in a television show.
Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge Pic: Netflix
From the start, the show proved controversial after three contestants received medical treatment after the game Red Light, Green Light was filmed in Bedfordshire during a cold snap in January.
Executive producer Tim Harcourt, creative director at Studio Lambert, said the team had taken “all the appropriate measures” before filming.
“Some people anonymously were disgruntled and annoyed that they had spent a lot of time playing that game in the cold and then were eliminated. And that’s understandable.”
But he says the challenging conditions were to be expected with such a massive jackpot.
“It is $4.56 million and Netflix is never just going to give that away easily.”
And with such a massive prize comes massive responsibility for the producers.
John Hay, chief executive of The Garden production company, said the team was “absolutely scrupulous – doubly so, given the size of the prize, about judging who moved and who hadn’t [in the Red Light, Green Light game].
“We had a whole team of adjudicators behind the scenes,” he said.
The Red Light, Green Light game Pic: Netflix
“These were people independent of us from a different company, trained lawyers, who would check those movements and we had those people with us all the way through the entire series.”
Hay said the jackpot prize was one of the most significant decisions that Netflix made about the show because “it just flips the whole thing”.
“Instead of being driven by the fear of death, it’s driven by the sort of scale of this opportunity.
“It turns out that’s just as powerful a motor for stories as in the drama. The people who went into that set lived in these six soundstages. The ones who made it to the finals were there for 16 days.
“They were chasing this huge prize. It felt like the stakes felt suitably high. And I think that drove some of the reactions to it in the course of the game,” Hay said.
The contestants’ dorm Pic: Netflix
And those reactions were sometimes powerful. The show feels more extreme and more challenging than any recent reality show game. One contestant appeared to be close to vomiting from the pressure of making a decision that would ultimately lead to his elimination.
“We had to accept that that immersion [in the game] would put people under quite a lot of pressure and it could be stressful. And that’s something that we would talk about [with contestants],” Harcourt said.
“We really take care as they exit the game to chat to them and allow them to process everything that they felt and to realise that it’s all fine now and that was a game and they were playing under pressure.
“Those are conversations that continue with the contributors not just straight after the game, but six months after,” Harcourt said, adding that the show’s welfare team is in touch with the contestants now as the show is airing.
A scene from Squid Game: The Challenge Pic: Netflix
Squid Game remains the most popular Netflix series of all time and was streamed by 111 million users in the first 28 days after its release in September 2021.
Hay, whose company The Garden has created shows such as 24 Hours in A&E and Emergency, said Squid Game’s success was both a blessing and a burden.
“Starting from a drama as brilliant and as successful as Squid Game is a huge head start in that there’s already a huge number of people interested and it’s very unusual in being a drama that’s based around a game.
“It’s an ingeniously designed game. There’s a real singularity and originality of the vision in the drama. There’s a world [with] a very distinctive sort of tone and visual style.
“But in another sense, it sets the bar unbelievably high. We knew that we had to match the world. We had to play in the spirit of the game.”
The number of contestants was also a huge logistical challenge. More than 80,000 people applied to be on the show with Hay saying it was a “mammoth task” to whittle it down to just 456 contestants.
“Of course, without a script, we had to find ways of creating the conditions in which some of those dynamics [of the drama] could play out without being able to actually know who our heroes were from the start and then write their storylines,” Hay said.
Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge Pic: Netflix
Harcourt, who has produced other reality shows including The Traitors, The Circle and Naked Attraction, said filming the 456 contestants was “the biggest creative challenge” of the show.
Another challenge was how to eliminate people from the game. In the drama, contestants are immediately killed which led to some creative discussions as to how to adapt it for the reality TV show.
“Quite early on we came upon the idea of the dye pack, which is something that every contestant wore underneath their white t-shirt,” Harcourt said.
“We arrived at black ink. There was a taste issue with blood.”
“We went through a lot of testing to get the dye colour right, the type of dye right. Even the nozzle that sprays the ink out through their T-shirt had to have such a force that it would actually show on that T-shirt and also that they would actually feel it go off so that everybody knew that they were out of the game.”
Click to subscribe to Backstage wherever you get your podcasts
So is this new kind of supersized reality TV show with massive stakes the future? Maybe, Harcourt and Hay said.
“I definitely think there will be these big reality shows that broadcasters or streamers will undertake,” Harcourt said.
“Unscripted television is still cheaper to make than some dramas and it can call in just as big an audience when it’s done brilliantly and it’s successful and the audience love it.
“So I don’t think we’re about to see a spate of 100 of these shows being made. But I think that some of these shows that feel bigger in execution and maybe bigger in concept will become a trend.”
Squid Game: The Challenge is on Netflix from today
Spain has become the latest country to threaten a boycott of next year’s Eurovision Song Contest if Israel competes.
It is now the fifth broadcaster to say it will pull out over Israel’s participation, following recent announcements by the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia and Iceland – but the first of the competition’s so-called “Big Five”, a group which also includes Britain, Germany, Italy and France.
These countries provide the biggest financial contributions to Eurovision, with participants automatically qualifying for the final round, and their withdrawal would increase the pressure on the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the event.
Ireland, represented by EMMY at Eurovision 2025, have also said they will not take part if Israel does. Pic: Reuters
The Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group, the competition’s governing body, said a decision on Israel’s participation is pending and that it has “taken note of the concerns expressed by several broadcasters”.
RTVE, the Spanish state broadcaster, announced the decision following a board vote on Tuesday.
The measure, proposed by president Jose Pablo Lopez, garnered 10 votes in favour, four against, and one abstention in the 15-member board, the broadcaster said in a statement.
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez has previously called for Israel to be banned from the competition, highlighting how Russia was expelled following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
At the time, the EBU said the decision reflected “concern that, in light of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year’s contest would bring the competition into disrepute”.
Yuval Raphael represented Israel at this year’s event. Pic: Reuters
Recent editions of the contest, which has always expressed political neutrality, have involved demonstrations against Israel’s continued military action in Gaza – launched in response to the attack by Hamas militants on 7 October 2023, which left some 1,200 people dead.
Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Hamas attack, finished second in this year’s competition, held in Basel, Switzerland, in May – but there were protests before and during her performance. Austrian singer JJ, who won, has also called for Israel’s exclusion in 2026.
Winner of the Eurovision Song Contest JJ from Austria. Pic: AP
Israel has denied accusations it is committing genocide and claimed its actions have been in self-defence against Hamas. More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military action.
In a statement following the vote in Spain, contest director Martin Green said he understood the “concerns and deeply held views around the ongoing conflict in the Middle East”, and that consultation with members is ongoing “to gather views on how we manage participation and geopolitical tensions”.
Broadcasters have until mid-December to conform if they want to take part.
What have others said?
The Netherlands was represented by Claude in Switzerland. Pic: Reuters
Dutch broadcaster AvroTros said last week that it was taking a stance in response to the loss of life in Gaza, with the deaths of journalists there a factor in the decision.
Irish broadcaster RTE said the country was taking the same stance, saying it was “unconscionable” to take part given the “ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza”.
Following his win in May, singer JJ said it was “disappointing to see Israel still participating”, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais. “I would like the next Eurovision to be held in Vienna and without Israel,” he added.
Read more from Sky News:
Trump sues New York Times
Google makes $5bn pledge to Britain
The “potential impacts and consequences of either decision” are being assessed, the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group said in a statament.
Next year’s Eurovision will be the 70th anniversary of the event, and will take place at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna on 16 May.
Owen Cooper, the star of TV drama Adolescence, has made history becoming the youngest to win an outstanding supporting actor Emmy.
Cooper, who is 15, played Jamie Miller in the highly-acclaimed Netflix series set in Liverpool.
Adolescence, which dominated Netflix’s most-watched list earlier this year, centres on the story of a 13-year-old boy arrested for the murder of a classmate.
It won a total of four Emmys.
Cooper was just 14 at the time of filming Adolescence and had never acted before.
Pic: Netflix
In his acceptance speech he said he was “nothing three years ago.”
“It’s just so surreal. Honestly, when I started these drama classes a couple years back, I didn’t expect to be even in the United States, never mind here.
“So I think tonight proves that if you listen and you focus and you step out your comfort zone, you can achieve anything in life.”
The four-part mini-series provoked a strong response from viewers and prompted a conversation in the UK – and worldwide – around misogyny and online safety, with co-creator Jack Thorne joining Prime Minister Keir Starmer for a discussion on the matter at the end of March.
It was also widely praised for its filming techniques, with each episode captured in one continuous take.
Gyllenhaal’s gift
Cooper’s co-star Erin Doherty (who played Jamie’s therapist) won best supporting actress in a limited series, director Philip Barantini took home the Emmy for outstanding directing for a limited or anthology series or movie, while writers Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham won for outstanding writing in the same category.
Before the awards ceremony, Cooper, from Warrington, had been surprised by his acting hero Jake Gyllenhaal, who walked in unannounced during an interview he was giving to press.
The pair hugged, and Gyllenhaal gave Cooper a small gift – a “lucky duck”.
“I made this movie [Brokeback Mountain], and I got nominated for an Academy Award, and a friend of mine sent me this before. Something just like this,” he said.
“It’s just a ‘Lucky Duck’ to keep in your pocket. To give you a little bit of luck.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment12 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024