Summary
I think Building the Band can be a super light-hearted experience for many people who enjoy music and reality shows – I love both, and I love the concept, but the execution was abysmally poor.
As someone who grew up in the early 2000s with a music-obsessed mother who introduced me to various music reality TV series, such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, and The Voice, I was intrigued to replicate that nostalgic feeling with Netflix’s competition reality series, Building the Band. Surprisingly, the reality show grabbed my attention not just for its nostalgic appeal, but also for its unique concept of forming bands’ sight unseen’ – a twist on the typical reality show format that I found to be a stroke of genius.
What is one of Netflix’s biggest reality shows? Love is Blind, right? I can imagine the conversation at Netflix HQ went something like: “People fall in love through a wall every year, sight unseen. So why don’t we take that idea, twist it, and instead help people create bands – sight unseen?”
We have created a world that is hyper-focused on visuals and aesthetics; we often judge a person before we get to know their character, personality, talents, and values. And in small ways, we are trying to restore order in our society by refraining from judging “a book by its cover.” A concept I wholeheartedly love and agree with. So well done, Building the Band, for this alone.
So here I was, hopeful and intrigued; however, my expectations (albeit fairly lofty) were quickly cut down like a bloodthirsty tree chopper.
The premise of Building the Band is as follows: there are 50 contestants with 10 likes available to pass to the individuals they’d like to be in a band with. Each individual must gain five or more likes to advance to the next round. Once they have made it through, they can start having conversations with each other (a little The Circle-esque.) Each band must consist of 3 to 5 group members.
Then the bands battle each other in front of the Judges: Nicole Scherzinger, Kelly Rowland, and Liam Payne. The series has created a touching memorial for Liam in Episode 1 to remember him, as this was filmed before his tragic death.
Most of the contestants arrived on the series with the mindset of forming an all-girl or all-boys band. I found these ideas to be slightly outdated, as they seemed to limit the potential for diverse and dynamic group dynamics. In a show where the goal is to form a band without seeing the members first, wouldn’t it be more open-minded to enter with no expectations and trust that you will find your people? Or am I being a nitpicker?
I feel like some cowboy strolled into town, grabbed a rope, and used it to lasso the series and DRAG IT OUT from Argentina to China (approx 12424.9384 miles).
I mean, just to put this into perspective, back in my day, during the Pop Idol and The X Factor era, we’d have maybe 1 or 2 weeks (equivalent to 1 or 2 episodes) of contestants auditioning, and that was plenty of time. Yet with Building the Band, they’ve taken three whole hours (three episodes) to create the bands, and I honestly skipped through a lot of it due to this big flaw.
This could have worked better had they released one episode per week, creating a sense of suspense, rather than the current format of releasing four episodes and then withholding the remaining six, which can lead to audience boredom.
There is a boy band that shows promise. One of the members (not naming names to avoid spoilers) was particularly discerning about the type of guys he wanted in his band, but ended up being (in my opinion) the one with the least amount of talent. It’s like he’s managed to hitchhike down some long-winded highway and caught his chance with the other three guys.
Truth be told, one girl band was formed; however, the chemistry was non-existent between the four of them, and they did not work well together. It was disappointing to see their potential go to waste due to this lack of connection.
I think Building the Band can be a super light-hearted experience for many people who enjoy music and reality shows – I love both, and I love the concept, but the execution was abysmally poor.
Perhaps the harsh truth is that I was hoping to relive my youthful days through this series, but unfortunately, that may no longer be possible because I’m practically a dinosaur.
