The show's inherent quiet is punctuated by brief intermittent commentaries from a panel of Japanese comedians and personalities, who sit sprawled around a comfy living room sitting, making observations and providing insight. While these frequently border on teasing or cruel, they're often surprisingly incisive, cutting someone's actions onscreen to the quick of their true motives. They answer the question the viewer might otherwise ask themselves, and which you're probably asking yourself right now—why does anyone watch this fucking show?

There's been a natural blowback against the wave of 'roided out reality television; these days, we prefer our villains at least feigning restraint, with immaculate dye jobs, sniping at each other from their adjacent, manicured lawns in Beverly Hills. But the rise of more mundane reality shows, Pawn Stars, for example, reveals a market for the intricacies of the human experience. Terrace House takes this conceit, that of toned-down reality tv, three steps further. There are minor human dramas on offer, but they're never played up for effect, nor are they dissected in confessionals or scripted personal conversations. The comedians will spend as long as ten minutes analyzing a simple gesture (i.e.: hand-holding), and in 19 episodes the most savage moment was when a quiet, unambitious model named Minori spelled out "Coward" in ketchup on the omu-rice she had made for her boyfriend's dinner. Everyone in Terrace House has lives they maintain outside of the home, though we rarely see them. The participants are med school undergrads, hair stylists, tap dance instructors, and they come and go as they please, according to the rhythms and vagaries of real life.