Battle Camp, hosted by former NFL player and University of Michigan star Taylor Lewan, gathers 18 stars from Netflix reality shows and splits them into three teams of four (we’ll explain the inconsistent math in a second). The players represent most of the current reality roster at the streamer, with participants from The Mole, The Ultimatum, Too Hot To Handle, Cheer, The Circle, Squid Game: The Challenge, Selling The OC and Perfect Match. While they’re situated in teams, though, only one person will win the $250,000 prize.
BATTLE CAMP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Shea from Squid Game: The Challenge sits for an interview and shows a picture of his mother. “She’s here in spirit… but not dead,” he says.
The Gist: Even before the teams — the Eagles, the Bears and the Wolves — are able to go to their glamping cabins, Lewan gives them their first physical challenge: A water-based obstacle course that tests speed, strength, smarts and endurance.
The winning team is given immunity from elimination. The last place team gets their names on a space on an 18-segment wheel — more on this in a second, as well. The winning team also gets to pick three people for a “Punishment” round, where they have to do something unpleasant — in the first episode, it’s staying in a wall-sitting position for as long as possible. The two contestants who lose that challenge get their names on the wheel — yes, a name can be on the wheel more than once.
The final twelve spots on the wheel come via vote; if someone votes for a contestant, that person’s name comes up on the wheel. Once the wheel is filled out, Lewan spins it, and the person whose name it lands on is eliminated. Obviously, the more times a name is on the wheel, the bigger chance they’re eliminated. The open spot is then filled in by one of the six contestants that have been waiting for their chance to play.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Battle Camp is essentially The Challenge, but with a roster of just Netflix reality stars.
Our Take: Battle Camp‘s game play is pretty straightforward: Three teams, physical challenges, and a vote. The wheel that randomizes who gets eliminated is a new wrinkle in this genre, but it’s not such a huge wrinkle that it’s a distraction or gives unfair results.
What’s interesting to us is the mix of participants. There’s only one person from Love Is Blind — Irina from Season 4 — and one from The Ultimatum — Lexi from the only season of The Ultimatum: Queer Love. We understand why that is, though: Battle Camp is a game where you need to not only be competitive but also have experience making alliances, stabbing teammates in the back and generally being out for yourself. That’s not necessarily the profile of most LIB and Ultimatum participants — though Irina certainly fits well in this mix, if you know what her time on LIB was like.
It’s not hard to figure out that contestants from the two most cutthroat shows in the Netflix reality universe — The Mole and Squid Game: The Challenge — dominate the proceedings in the first episode. Tony, from Season 2 of The Mole, is at his lunkeaded best in this episode as he targets Lexi after a massive challenge screw-up, and Avori, from The Mole‘s first season, tries to hide just how athletically inclined she is, but her competitiveness gets the best of her, putting a target on her back. Lorenzo and Trey from Squid Game: The Challenge are immediately in each other’s crosshairs, based on previous experience.
The challenges themselves are reasonably well-done, but it’s sometimes hard to figure out who was doing what, given that we’ve just been introduced to everyone in the cast. Lewan is decent enough as host, with a good sense of humor and an ability to keep himself from taking these proceedings too seriously. But, unless you’re well-versed in the Netflix reality universe, there isn’t much about this series that you will be able to latch onto.
Sex and Skin: None, besides people in towels getting in and out of the shower.
Parting Shot: The first wheel spin occurs, and as the pointer hovers between two names, the credits roll. Netflix has a bad habit of making eliminations into episodic cliffhangers, which makes no sense given the fact that you can just immediately fire up the next episode.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Lorenzo because he’s funny in that arrogant way we usually see from at least one contestant on shows like these.
Most Pilot-y Line: The microphone setup feels awkward, with the mic on a string with a cord that leads to a belt with the battery pack on it. Was there a budget issue that prevented the producers from going with a more elegant solution?
Our Call: STREAM IT, if you’re a fan of Netflix’s reality shows, but SKIP IT if you’re not. Battle Camp just isn’t interesting enough to keep the interest of people who aren’t familiar with the streamer’s reality universe.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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