Fight for Paradise: Who Can You Trust? Review 2024 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
Netflix has released two competitions shows based on the same rules within the same week, the French series Don’t Hate The Player, and this German show, Fight For Paradise. The premise of both is the same: a group of 20-somethings is dropped on a tropical island without knowing the premise of the show they’re taking part in. At first, they’re brought to a waterfront mansion where they get to know one another, toast some Champagne, and begin to form friendships…seeing them all assembled together drinking and dancing in their club wear is like an Ibiza fever dream. But the dream will become a nightmare because after a few short hours, the host, model-actress Bonnie Strange, tells them that they’re not going to be living in luxury after all, they’re being relocated to a beachside camp with no electricity, a bunch of cots, and no hot water.
From there, they will have to engage in a series of challenges and votes that will determine who will remain an “outsider” – literally, a contestant forced to remain outside, and who gets to be an “insider,” one of the lucky ones who is allowed to sleep in the villa. The last remaining contestant in the villa at the end of the season will win the big prize of €100,000.
On the first day, the contestants are told that they are each allowed to vote for one person who will get to sleep in the villa that night. This is where the strategic campaigning begins – one player, Eleyna, casually starts mentioning she has her period and really could use a shower, trying to elicit sympathy from her male competitors. In a confessional, we see her smile a devilish smile after this happens, and it’s clear that her strategy is to make these guys uncomfortable and get their votes that way. (With so many contestants on shows like this trying to flirt or barter their way into alliances, I at least have to throw some respect on Eleyna for this lesser-used period angle, and – spoiler alert – it works and she’s given a spot in the villa.)
But advantages are also given to contestants who compete in camp challenges, who are also allowed to vote people off the show entirely. It feels a little odd that so much of the show’s outcome is based around random votes for one another, because the cast thus far hasn’t really built up alliances and they seem unsure of why they would want to vote for certain people to receive advantages, because ultimately, everyone on the show is in this for themselves. That’s part of the strategy, I suppose, but it also feels frustrating and arbitrary as a viewer.
It’s hard to know what is the underlying intention of a show like Fight For Paradise. Obviously survival/strategy shows can be addictive, but when you plop a big group of seemingly entitled, appearance-obsessed young adults with no survival skills into the woods and ask them to rough it, does the show become more about Schadenfreude, as if the audience is meant to take pleasure in their discomfort? In many way, it seems like we’re supposed to actively root against some of them for that reason. This cast, perhaps more than most other reality competition casts, feels more stacked with superficial types; models and influencers, self-proclaimed spoiled brats, people who aren’t shy declaring that they want to be famous. Even though one of them will walk away that much richer, it still feels like the joke’s on them.
Ultimately, as their highly primped exteriors are removed over time, we get to see at least some of these people for who they really are, whether they’re truly manipulative and motivated solely by the cash prize, or if they’ve made genuine alliances and seem honest and worthy and deserving of the prize. The audience should know that this is billed as a “social experiment” rather than a reality competition, so maybe that’s the lens we should view it through. Seeing it that way makes it more about the players’ behavior and how it can (or can’t) be justified, considering that they all have the same end goal, it’s just a matter of which personality type and game tactics will help the eventual winner stay in the game the longest.
