Netflix's 'Squid Game: The Challenge' Breaks All the Rules of Reality TV

On first impression, it's difficult to fathom how Squid Game: The Challenge—a game show version of Squid Game—could ever work. Watching contestants compete without the threat of imminent death all but misses the point, right?

Yet Netflix's new spin-off of the thrilling Korean drama not only succeeds but triumphs in bringing to screens one of the most compelling TV competitions of the decade. Rather than focus on humans' survival instincts to keep viewers on the edges of their seats, The Challenge hones in on our ambitions and ruthlessness.

The 456 contestants who gather at the start line for the infamous Red Light, Green Light game aren't being sprayed with bullets for their failure to stay still on the swift turn of the sinister giant doll's head. Instead, black ink is seen exploding across the losing contestants' chests as they feign their own fatality and forfeit a $4.56 million jackpot—the largest cash prize in reality television history, according to Netflix.

Amateur dramatics aside, the 10-episode show makes much of the spectacle of it all with slow-motion footage and an emotive soundtrack as we see the contestants do whatever it takes to become the sole winner of the life-changing prize pot.

As each millionaire-in-waiting—hailing mostly from the U.S. and Europe—falls by the wayside, a $10,000 stack is dumped into a giant ball hanging ominously above their expansive dormitory. As the numbers whittle down and we get to know these contestants, they're ultimately reduced to numbers. And cold, hard cash.

Often, moments after a contestant is embraced as a hero or sneered at as a villain, they're mercilessly cut loose for failing a challenge, or simply being voted out by a competitor in moments that test their morals and game-playing tactics.

"That was probably one of the biggest challenges—how do you cope with the fact that your heroes keep disappearing?" executive producer Stephen Lambert, of production company Studio Lambert, told Newsweek of working on the new show. "But we took heart from the fact that some very successful dramas, like Game of Thrones or Band of Brothers have heroes [who] suddenly disappear."

"The fact that prize money was so big, gave the whole thing an intensity," Lambert added. "Obviously, it wasn't the same as people being killed, but it certainly made it different to any other kind of elimination show."

John Hay of The Garden, who also served as an executive producer on the show, told Newsweek that the competition and the hit drama series that inspired it are "an amazing mechanism for testing character and for digging into human nature and seeing what people are really made of beneath the sort of thin veneer of polite society. And that's at the heart of a lot of great scripted and unscripted shows."

It's also a logical next step for Netflix. As fans anticipate a second season of the scripted Squid Game, the show continues to reign supreme as Netflix's most popular show of all time, outranking the likes of Stranger Things and Wednesday with over 2 billion hours viewed.

With the foundations of a Squid Game universe currently being laid to keep that coveted magic going, leading the franchise into the unscripted realm will hopefully satiate the thirst of audiences first introduced to the show in 2021.

"They had a massive hit on their hands, and the unscripted part of Netflix, the people in charge of that thought, 'Well, it'd be amazing if we were to make this show for real. Let's play it.' It kind of invited [them] to see what it would be like if people really played it," Lambert said. "They talked to some production companies and ended up bringing [Hay and I] together to make the show."

Still, surely even the most experienced of production teams must have paused for a second at the idea of casting 456 starting contestants—especially knowing that dozens could be lost in each round, often before getting any significant camera time.

"It's completely against the rules of making reality television," Hay admitted. "I mean, the orthodoxy is that you shouldn't have more than 20. Because nobody can concentrate on, or connect with, that number. But over 80,000 people applied to take part. So I mean, fortunately, there were 456 interesting people in that group."

Hay said that it was "an absolutely gargantuan effort" to cast the show, which involved production teams setting up audition hubs on the east and west coasts of the U.S. and one in London for contestants from Europe and beyond. Because Squid Game was a global success, Hay said that they "wanted it to be a global cast, even though it was weighted towards Americans."

"The whole thing was on a scale that we'd never encountered, both from a casting point of view, but from a production point of view," Lambert added. "It was quite an undertaking."

There were grumbles from some unsuccessful contestants, who alleged that they were unfairly eliminated from the opening Red Light, Green Light challenge. "They were completely wrong," Lambert said of any such suggestion from the "few anonymous people" who saw their dreams dashed early on in the process.

Elaborating, Hay said that their methods were "totally foolproof... Independent adjudicators, who are trained lawyers from a company separate to us, [watched] the whole thing," and there were "layers of checking on video... I mean, of course, I'm not surprised that in a game where 455 people didn't win $4.56 million, there were some people who were unhappy about going out."

With all of the logistics of putting the show together, what proved to be one of the more challenging aspects? Lambert and Hay agreed that it was getting Squid Game's iconic Korean dalgona candies made to be the correct consistency for that particular challenge.

As viewers may recall, Squid Game characters were seen using a needle to cut out the unbroken shape of either a circle, triangle or umbrella to advance to the next round. Recreating this for the unscripted show took much work behind the scenes.

Lambert told Newsweek it took "19 different versions" of the candy—made of sugar and baking soda—before they were satisfied that they had something ready for competition. "They were either too brittle, or they were too soft, or they were they dried too quickly when they were exposed to the air," he explained. "They had to be just right. And it took a long time to go just right."

While the team also appears to have all the ingredients for a compelling game show, they're hoping that the audience will embrace the finished product.

"The hope is that a lot of people love it," Hay said. "Obviously, it comes off the back of an incredibly successful show. We want all the people who love the drama to love it. We also hope there are some people who didn't necessarily watch the drama who will be drawn by this sort of idea of watching a new reality show.

"Our mantra for the whole of the production—and indeed, one of the guards says in Episode 1—is, 'How you play is who you are.' So we hope we've made something that delivers on that."

The first five episodes of Squid Game: The Challenge are out now on Netflix. A second batch of four episodes will debut on November 29, while the finale will air from December 6.