My first instinct was to avoid the TV show Squid Game: The Challenge, for highly pleasing reasons of self-righteous disdain. The original Squid Game, a nine-episode drama created by Hwang Dong-hyuk that launched on Netflix in 2021, became a sensation for its inventive brutality, heart-stopping drama and what must be referred to at all times as its searing indictment of capitalism.

Turning a show in which contestants are murdered if they lose a game into an actual reality show (minus the murder) is a bit like reviving the world of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, in which a bunch of food insecure people are invited to wear themselves out for our viewing pleasure. No, thank you!

Well, anyway; I watched the first episode, became instantly hooked, ploughed through a further seven episodes in two days and am now convinced it’s the best TV of the year. And while I have a range of this-is-why-it’s-OK justifications, it’s worth pointing out that Squid Game: The Challenge is, at some level, simply a pitch-perfect production. The casting is superb, heavily skewed towards Americans, with a few comedy Britons and one weird Australian. It is very diverse, with the sort of characters you don’t tend to see on more conventional reality shows – that is, people who give the impression of being........

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