It’s all just so dumb, so pandering, so ridiculous, so obviously trolling a certain segment of the population …
And all so utterly and completely harmless.
We speak of the new Netflix “reality” survival show “Snowflake Mountain,” and kudos to the individuals(s) that came up with that title, as it’s sure to trigger some woke comments about virtue signaling — oh let’s be honest, I’m just dropping in some potentially incendiary buzzwords because it’s 2022 and here we are.
This is one of the more contrived series of the ever-expanding reality genre, featuring a bevy of contestants who aren’t nearly as interesting as they believe themselves to be, a couple of amiable but rather bland co-hosts and the requisite medley of swooping drone shots, editing that serves the storytelling, constant cuts to contestants giving “confessional” type interviews — and of course, some twists and turns that will CHANGE EVERYTHING.
There’s been a steady stream of fish-out-of-water competition shows in the last two decades plus, from “Survivor” (we’re 42 seasons into the American version) to “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!” to “Naked and Afraid” to “Frontier House” to “Dude, You’re Screwed,” which pretty much describes how I’d feel if I had to watch nothing but shows like this.
In “Snowflake Mountain,” an admittedly well-produced and tightly edited offering from veteran producers Jo Harcourt-Smith (“The Circle”) and Cal Turner (“Undercover Boss”), we’re introduced to 10 young adults, most of them in their early 20s, who pride themselves on being lazy and materialistic, lacking basic life skills and not particularly interested in moving out of the house.
Their ranks include:
- Randy, a wannabe pro wrestler, who tells us, “My parents hate that I still live with them.”
- Devon, who boasts, “I party 24/7. … I don’t take s--- from anyone, I’m a b----, I do like attention.”
- Olivia, whose mother says, “Her first instincts are to quit, right?” to which Olivia responds, “Yeah.”
- Deandra, who says, “I got fired from three of my jobs.”
- Liam, who wants to make sure we know that “when it comes to cleaning, not for me hon.”
We could go on, but because aside from some mostly superficial differences, it’s an interchangeable and largely forgettable bunch who THINK they’ve been selected to stay at a luxury resort to star in a “glamorous new reality show” — so you can just imagine how shocked and outraged they are when they meet co-hosts Matt, an Army combat engineer for nearly 10 years, and Joel, “a former Navy explosive ordinance disposal [technician], basically the bomb squad,” and they’re told that this is basically a Gen Z version of “Survivor.”
As Joel grouses about how these entitled whiners “don’t want to earn anything, they just want handouts,” the nascent contestants moan about the primitive conditions in the woods as they bumble through rudimentary challenges such as retrieving crates of food from a raft in the middle of a lake; chopping trees; building a fire; climbing a tree; taking care of chickens, and hiking up a mountain. Before it’s all over, there will be departures and arrivals on Snowflake Mountain, messages of support from the parental units, alliances and betrayals, and who knows, maybe some of these superficial babies will learn something about themselves and become better people, can you believe it!
Anything is possible on “Snowflake Mountain.” In neatly packaged, obviously contrived, slick and forgettable 30-minute segments, that is.
