”It’s been over 50 years, but it’s time to reopen the doors of my ever-so wondrous chocolate factory.” So says Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka at the start of Netflix’s new game show-cum-social experiment Wonka’s Golden Ticket. Unlucky, fans of Tim Burton’s 2005 film! (Just kidding: there aren’t any.)
Wilder is of course dead, so the weirdly inert voice we hear is an AI confection. His estate has given permission for this, but who cares? It’s still gross.
Contestants – supposedly selected via a ‘golden ticket’ process (conveniently, a film crew was around to capture the moment of discovery every time) are invited to a lavish recreation of Wonka’s factory. Screaming crowds greet them, for some reason.
Inside, the teams (each ticket holder has brought a buddy) are told what they’re competing for: “a lifetime’s supply of money”, rather unmagically. To a man, the contestants are surprised and excited, as they are by almost everything.
This is just as well, as the sheer volume of them slows the show’s pace. A gumball machine randomly whisks a few away, while the others are transported to the factory floor, where the chocolate river flows. After much pointing, exclaiming and set-gobbling from the survivors, Robo-Gene reveals the fate of the missing: imprisoned in giant gumballs. Two competitors genuinely cry about this – a tonal dip that precedes a treasure hunt, oompa-loompa performance and a Traitors-esque psychological game of persuasion in the contestants’ quarters.
Yes – they all live together. Will any of them bunk up in one of the marshmallow beds? There’s so much going on in this show it can’t be ruled out.
The series’ final two episodes remain unreleased. Could there be a moral twist to Wonka’s promise of “a six-figure salary, for 30 years”? Fingers crossed.
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