Binge watched this, because that's apparently just what I do with Netflix's ever-growing list of esoteric competition shows now.
You get exactly what you expect, people making big sculptures out of plants.
In terms of the people, the female host had more personality than most hosts on shows like this, happy to crack some jokes, poke fun at herself and get involved. The male judge? I don't really know what the point of him was. He basically said something at the start then disappeared and showed up in the final. The recurring judge was apparently competing for "world's most smackable individual" and I hear he won after baring his teeth at contestants repeatedly.
Some contestants were a bit... over the top? It really just shows the divide between artistic and creative people who make incredible things, and people who want you to think they're artistic and creative so they dive through the dumpster of a Halloween costume shop between every scene.
Some of the pieces they make are absolutely incredible. Considering the contestants are amateurs and many have very little experience with plants and the sorts of challenges they were doing, what they made was incredible and realistic to an insane degree. Personally I feel some teams were relatively overlooked, when they made really beautiful work they got minimal comments like 'it's really nice' before the judges went on to endlessly praise the same two teams every single challenge.
I feel the pacing of the show was mediocre for the most part. In the early episodes you knew from the get go which two teams were competing for first, and which two were facing elimination, because the other teams were simply not shown for more than 10 seconds. In an early episode teams created huge animals and when they were revealed I really had a moment of "wait, someone was making a wolf?" because I honestly hadn't seen the team since the start of the episode.
50 minute episodes for single challenges was also a bit drawn out at times. It's a very artistic competition so compared to a lot of similar shows where different techniques can be shown, there was just a LOT of watching people plant plants, as the final result was the only standout moment. There was a significant amount of what felt like staged drama, little spats over the selection of accessories and plant colours and one person hoarding one thing or another, but somehow miraculously everyone happened to come out with everything they needed.
All in all, if you watch the trailer and it looks interesting, it probably will be. It's not overly long so as to get boring, but there's no really significant ups and downs or particularly exciting moments, just some pretty cool plant sculptures.
You get exactly what you expect, people making big sculptures out of plants.
In terms of the people, the female host had more personality than most hosts on shows like this, happy to crack some jokes, poke fun at herself and get involved. The male judge? I don't really know what the point of him was. He basically said something at the start then disappeared and showed up in the final. The recurring judge was apparently competing for "world's most smackable individual" and I hear he won after baring his teeth at contestants repeatedly.
Some contestants were a bit... over the top? It really just shows the divide between artistic and creative people who make incredible things, and people who want you to think they're artistic and creative so they dive through the dumpster of a Halloween costume shop between every scene.
Some of the pieces they make are absolutely incredible. Considering the contestants are amateurs and many have very little experience with plants and the sorts of challenges they were doing, what they made was incredible and realistic to an insane degree. Personally I feel some teams were relatively overlooked, when they made really beautiful work they got minimal comments like 'it's really nice' before the judges went on to endlessly praise the same two teams every single challenge.
I feel the pacing of the show was mediocre for the most part. In the early episodes you knew from the get go which two teams were competing for first, and which two were facing elimination, because the other teams were simply not shown for more than 10 seconds. In an early episode teams created huge animals and when they were revealed I really had a moment of "wait, someone was making a wolf?" because I honestly hadn't seen the team since the start of the episode.
50 minute episodes for single challenges was also a bit drawn out at times. It's a very artistic competition so compared to a lot of similar shows where different techniques can be shown, there was just a LOT of watching people plant plants, as the final result was the only standout moment. There was a significant amount of what felt like staged drama, little spats over the selection of accessories and plant colours and one person hoarding one thing or another, but somehow miraculously everyone happened to come out with everything they needed.
All in all, if you watch the trailer and it looks interesting, it probably will be. It's not overly long so as to get boring, but there's no really significant ups and downs or particularly exciting moments, just some pretty cool plant sculptures.