With the success of Squid Game and Black Mirror, the concept of a game show as a makeshift solution to a dystopic world is interesting, but it led Netflix to create reality competitions to capitalize on the hype (Looking at you, Squid Game: The Challenge). This time, however, Thai Netflix takes a more unique approach with Ready, Set, Love. It’s more humorous, as Day fumbles each time she meets Son, and with the reality show being a dating show, there’s surely some romantic mishaps that would happen. But the show doesn’t forget the stakes behind the campy, candy-colored world– with Day doing all she can to secure her chronically ill sister’s healthcare and with Son dissatisfied in the utopic cage that is The Farm. Ready, Set, Love has plenty of the fun shenanigans expected for its romcom approach, but it remembers to empathize with the desperation and hardships that make reality game shows so compelling.
In a world grappling with a dwindling male population, an unassuming woman becomes a contender in a government-sponsored dating competition.
In a world with a dwindling male population, the government sponsors a reality dating competition where women must compete for the limited chance for their hands in marriage.
Look, if the whole male population dwindled to a few hundred people, things wouldn’t be as sunny and colorful as the dating game of Ready, Set, Love. That being said, it’s just so delightful to see a more camp version of a dystopia, rather than the drab, gray, brutalist settings these worlds tend to be.
And if this ends up with an actual game show, I won’t be mad this time, Netflix. This was actually cute.
