‘Beyond Bleak’: UK Show Rebuked for Squid Game-Esque Segment Amid Energy Crisis – “Spin the wheel and find out whether I’ll survive the winter!” said one appalled viewer. “F**k me.”

42 comments

  1. I’m not sure how offensive this is. The current situation is terrible, but TV and radio shows often do things like this. I’ve seen ones about paying your mortgage. Are the twitter people offended just relatively wealthy ones with blue ticks by their names?

  3. It’s quite a clever illustration, ” oh no, I only won £1000, instead of four months energy payments”. Would have been bizarre only a few weeks ago.

  5. How about a quiz show, “Who Wants to Win a Kidney Machine” or a travel reality show where desperate contestants compete to see who gets the all expenses paid coronary bypass in Costa Rica. Look out for some wild drama when one of the contestants dies!

  6. To be honest if someone on Twitch or YouTube did this, it would be hilarious and probably go viral. I think this is a bit of manufactured outrage.

    Also, Squid Game resulted in death soon after losing a game. Unless the guy on the phone was killed immediately after, I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare it to Squid Game.

  7. Manufactured outrage over nothing. I think most people would be quite happy to have an extra £1000 or their energy bills paid for, for a few months than nothing at all.

    There’s a reason I call it Twatter.

  8. I thought it was great. They’re not allowed to be satirical on the show so they had to act serious while giving people paid bills as a prize.

    But it’s because of that TV manner Philip had that people couldn’t tell if this was dystopian or a commentary on the current state of energy bills.

    Either way, it was great to see this and the backlash that people had about it. It’s a good medium to give people some perspective

  9. Personally I saw it as a very pointed comment on the state of the country at the moment; shades of Joe Lycett

  10. It’s a way of highlighting the income inequality agitated by soaring energy prices. The only outraged people are the fucking ostriches who don’t live in reality.

  11. The US has reality shows all the time where people enter competitions with stories like “I just want to pay off my student loan debt” or “I’m doing this to help pay for my mother’s leukaemia.” These shows were invented specifically to exploit and capitalise on poverty while also normalising a cruel for-profit culture that says it’s okay for people not be able to afford healthcare, food and in this case, energy.

    It feels like we are headed down the same super bleak route. When the Tories finally sell off our NHS, don’t be surprised to see “pay off your medical bills” on a spin the wheel just like this one.

  13. At first I was like “of for fucks sake” but they’re just being satirical of the shitshow we are in and painting a picture of how bad things really are. If you’re upset by this it’s really just comes down to not wanting to accept the reality we live in. Its shit, but we just have to laugh at it

  17. >If convicted of energy theft a fine of up to £2,000 could be levied. Those found stealing electricity, or those who are repeat offenders, could face a prison sentence of up to five years.

    Sounds bad, right?

    >Typical energy bills are forecast to be more than £3,000 a year until at least 2024. Ofgem announced today that the energy price cap will increase to £3,549 a year for an average household from 1 October 2022.

    Hmmm….Looks like there is going to be a lot of energy theft in the coming years.

  18. Just a bit too on the nose.

    “You win the ability to survive the winter!”

    They’re mocking a serious situation in a way which punches down. Which really leaves a bad taste.

    It deserves complaints.

    They could have highlighted reality without trying to turn it into a sick joke.

  19. I’m not sure if the GMB team this this on purpose, if they did it’s genius.

    Shows just how dystopian and fucked we are without making an overt political statement. Something people on any side can latch on to and see the absurdity of.

    Playing satire straight is a good way to reinforce it.

  21. It is darkly amusing and I would suspect someone over there knew what people would think and stayed quiet. It’s the sort of thing that’s needed to pile on the pressure. The slogans are quite mild at the moment “Enough is Enough” is almost absurdly polite as statements go and any other government would be drawing up CPOs for the energy companies already, so we’ve some way to go yet. The British cynicism may lead us to quite dark times before there is any actual change, because there aren’t the options for it politically now.

    No, the dark humour is appropriate if intentional. I think we would be well served by internalising it and hopefully letting it guide us into more sensible voting habits.

  22. The bleak thing is not that a TV programme tried to make a joke about this. The bleak thing is that the situation has arisen in the first place.

  24. It’s a bit black mirror, but a good prize! I don’t want a grand or a holiday, I want to know the heating and cooking is sorted for a year. That’s an immense prize to win

  25. I think this is almost commentary on how bad things have gotten in the country. I would like to think that nobody at ‘This Morning’ thought this was a good idea, more that it was a point, almost a form of protest to put something *so* ridiculous, *so* dystopian on TV that it forces the hand of those in power to do something.

    At the end of the day this goes out to what can potentially be a global audience. Its not good optics for the UK government that one of if not the biggest morning/daytime TV shows in Britain is having to add energy bills as a prize in a competition, especially when that prize is considered more valuable next to £1,000 cash.

    That’s what I’d like to think anyway, I hope I’m not wrong.

  29. Reminds me a bit of gallows humor.

    I guess I just don’t see a problem with these segments. “Light humor” is one of the few ways we can have a dialogue about these things. The absurdity of the situation can be lost if a serious tone is always taken.

  30. The type of brain that thought this up, is the same kind of brain that thinks pizza is a suitable reward for achieving company targets

  31. ‘Beyond Bleak’? Perhaps it’s just me but I saw it & thought:
    > oh that’s a bit fucking tasteless & tone deaf

    … and then I went about my day, because out of all the things to be angry about, this seems pretty low down on the list.

    What about Nadine Dorries getting a peerage for being a sycophant and getting a lifelong paycheck at our expense? Or Christopher Chope being put forward to judge Partygate? Aren’t these the real ‘beyond bleak’ matters? More so than a possibly well-intentioned but thoughtless TV competition?

  32. I lost respect for them when they were found at an event not social distancing when telling us what to do.

  35. In homage to the Animaniacs:
    “Wheel of dystopia, turn turn turn! Give us the money that we can’t earn”

  37. Personally I’m looking forward to the next iteration of this game segment.

    ‘Win a GP appointment’, ‘Win a non-disrupted train journey to work’, ‘Win a tank of petrol’, ‘Win your assailants court case happens this year’.

  41. This isn’t the first time they’ve offered paying bills as prizes though on this morning and no one got hissy about it before.

    I think people are getting pissed because for a lot of people bills are going to be a big issue for them for the first time, there’s always been poor people that have entered competitions because they need to, desperatly hoping to win so they can get through winter, and that was all fine and dandy until “normal” people started to worry, now suddenly it’s bad taste because there’s a whole wave of nouveau poor that are still raw about their deal. The old poor are used to this.

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