Netflix’s 100 Humans is an eight-episode series that attempts to answer questions about life by exploring the details people often overlook. Unfortunately, it fails to capture the curiosity of what it is to be human and instead shapes up to be a dull series about meaningless facts that no one really cares about.
The premise is simple. 100 people are selected to proportionally represent a cross-section of society. These people then have to take on a series of random tests. For example, they are asked to take toilet paper from a roll to test whether they take it from the bottom side up or the bottom side down. The tests get increasingly ridiculous with the most ridiculous being whether a man being a good dancer is indicative of a high sperm count. Seriously, who came up with this?
It’s not to say that the show doesn’t have its good moments. Very occasionally, it does have moments when audiences will think “oh sure, I just assumed everyone did that the same way I did.” Beyond that, there is a lack of genuine creativity. Instead, it seems that the producers have randomly paired uninteresting ideas in the hope that something interesting will arise. 90% of the time, this method fails.
Possibly the worst thing about the series is that each episode is forty minutes long. 320 minutes of light-hearted television sounds promising in a time where we are desperate things to do, but you would be better off re-watching the fifth season of Friends for the umpteenth time. It gets old really fast.
Ultimately, the show that makes itself out to be full of fun scientific experiments lacks both the fun and the science. The show comprises of pseudo-science at best and however you look at it, one hundred humans cannot answer any of life’s big questions.
While the concept of the show is not a bad one, it is just executed poorly. The majority of viewers will fail to find anything about the show mildly interesting and if you haven’t seen it yet, we suggest you give it a miss.
1/5