Netflix Has Brought The Selling Sunset Format To The UK – And Critics Are Pulling No Punches
After the success of Selling Sunset and its spin-off Selling The OC, it was really only a matter of time before the hit reality format was taken internationally.
On Wednesday, Buying London – a new series following a group of estate agents in the UK capital – debuted on Netflix.
The show centres around Daniel Daggers and his colleagues at DDRE Global, a real estate business that sells luxury properties around London and beyond.
And folks… it’s not exactly been well-received.
On launch day, The Guardian ran a rare zero-star review branding Buying London “probably the most hateable TV show ever made”.
Pointing out the timing of a reality show about luxury UK properties set against a cost of living crisis, their review claimed: “I suspect that Buying London has been produced with at least some concession that it will be watched not with joy, but with rage. In that respect, I bow to Netflix, who have manipulated me into a state of mild fury.
“Then again, this could be radical leftwing propaganda in disguise. Is this the Trojan horse (house?) that finally ends our passive acceptance of billionaires…”
GQ was similarly scathing in a review that referred to Buying London as “tasteless” and a “TV manifestation of ‘not a single person has read the room’”.
“Maybe the genre was already becoming increasingly tasteless post-pandemic and mid-global recession, and Buying London is simply the final nail in a coffin that should have stopped being built long ago,” GQ ponders.
The Telegraph was slightly more generous in its own two-star review, but still called the new Netflix format “artificial, vulgar, post-truth TV”.
Then again, they also suggested, “if you’re after the glossy thrills of cheesy scripted-reality TV, you will be well-served by this constructed Netflix series”.
“During a cost of living and housing crisis, is it crass and tin-eared to rub people’s noses in this grotesque, mind-boggling level of wealth?” The Times pondered in its own two-star review. “Of course it is! Horribly so. But people will watch it, because this is a penthouse peep show, and noses will be pressed fully to the window.”
Meanwhile, the Evening Standard went as far as giving Buying London four stars, praising the drama provided by the reality show and hailing it as proof that “the Netflix formula can indeed translate across the pond”.
Still not put off? Well, Buying London is available to stream on Netflix now.