Thanks to 2020 becoming something of an early-2000s disaster movie, the entertainment industry is parched for new content, which is why I've found myself watching yet another cringe-worthy Netflix reality show.
Actually, cringe-worthy doesn't even seem to cover it - it's so uncomfortable to watch that I simply haveto share with you all so strap in, folks.
First up: The name. It's called Baewatch: Parental Guidance.
Bae, for those who don't know, is another name for one's significant other and (as I've just learned from this show) stands for "before anyone else".
But the title isn't just a fun play on words; it's actually quite literal. A young couple goes on a romantic getaway while their families secretly move in next door and watch their every move to see if their loved one's bae is good enough for them.
And when I say "every move", I mean it. If you were a raging sociopath you could even watch your kid and their bae getting intimate. (Thankfully, most people know when to look away).
That said, it takes a special kind of someone to go spy on their loved one's romantic getaway. I think the idea of the show is for us to judge the loved-up couples but it's actually far more interesting to judge their parents, who for some reason feel like it's totally fine to sneak into their kid's room, rifle through their partner's luggage, watch them through a two-way mirror like Norman Bates 2.0 and watch their every move courtesy of 20 or so cameras.
On top of all that, they also get to interview their kids secretly, feeding the director questions to pass on to their unsuspecting kids. There's even a super fun segment where they watch their kids take a quiz including questions like "what's your favourite sex position?" and "how many sexual partners have you had?"
The best part of the show is the narrator, although I am terribly biased because said narrator is Alice Levine, one-third of the team behind My Dad Wrote a Porno - possibly one of the best podcasts ever.
What's great about her isn't just all the funny jibes, but she offers some much-needed perspective; calling out the parents' weird behaviour and unfair judgements so you feel less alone in your utter horror.
In the first few episodes, we encounter a mum who's decided to hate her daughter's boyfriend because she doesn't want her daughter to leave home, and a mum who hates her son's girlfriend because she's jealous she's "taking her son away" from her.
Can you say 0800-dial-a-therapist?
There's also just the usual generation gap nonsense; like how old people thing young people are "too young" to be in love and "they shouldn't be fighting that much" and "it's just lust" - as if they were never 21 and as if they've only had one relationship in which everything was perfect and nothing ever went wrong and they lived happily ever after.
On the plus side, it is kind of nice that most of the families I've seen so far seem to come around to their loved one's bae in the end. I like that willingness to learn and admit they were wrong. But also sometimes I think it's less about said bae and more about them realising that what they've just done is wildly unnatural and they'd rather go back to being blissfully ignorant.
Parents are not supposed to know about their kids' lives in this much detail. They're just not. You know they're up to stuff you absolutely wouldn't like but as long as they're safe and happy and being treated well, you don't need the detail - in much the same way that I know my grandparents and parents had sex because here we all are, but I'm more than fine with leaving it at that
I don't know if it's what Netflix intended but that, to me, is what really makes Baewatch fascinating; not the kids getting caught out (although I did get a kick out of watching certain scenes unfold with my hands over my mouth in sheer cringe mode), but the parents sliding down a steep learning curve and how that changes the dynamic between families.
As far as guilty pleasures go, I'm not mad at Baewatch. The format brings all the cringe, Alice Levine brings all the lols and general human behaviour makes you look at your own family and thank God they can only stalk you on social media.
* This is Siena Yates' final TV review for the Herald.
