Netflix

My reality TV consumption levels recently reached a personal high with Netflix’s Terrace House. My journey to the Japanese reality show has been extremely reflective of how things work in 2017: (1) a friend declared her love for the show on Facebook in March, (2) the title card has been lurking the background of my Netflix menu for months, and (3) over Memorial Day weekend, the New York Times Magazine published a nice Letter of Recommendation for the show. It was time to check it out.



Terrace House stars six young and extremely good-looking strangers in an equally gorgeous house in Japan. There are hidden cameras everywhere to capture everything from who's sleeping on the couch to an afternoon of scrubbing the pool (yes, there's a pool). The show first ran for eight seasons on Fuji Television in Japan before Netflix took notice and teamed up with the network in 2015 to make more episodes. At least two more iterations have been produced, with the most recent one taking place in Hawaii - two parts have already aired on Netflix, with part-three of Aloha State arriving June 13 in the U.S. I’m in the thick of its predecessor, Boys x Girls in the City, which takes place in Tokyo and simultaneously aired on Netflix and Fuji for one year beginning in late 2015.



Netflix

To borrow the words of Jerry Seinfeld, even though the show is about nothing, I can’t stop watching it, and I think about it all the time. Terrace House moves at a snail’s pace, but it’s an attractive pace, thanks to the sleek camerawork and a catchy theme song I now use to get ready in the morning. The cast — three girls, three boys — is wildly fascinating. There's an aspiring baseball player whose intake of junk food becomes a major concern for the other roommates. There's a medical student with the most incredible collection of scrunchies. There's also a tap dancer who's obsessed with talking about life and career goals of other people. Harsh, because I'm still figuring that out, but these are just some of the wonderful characters you will get to meet on Terrace House.

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The six roommates have access to a car and are given the freedom to live their lives outside of Terrace House. People go to work, university, go for midnight runs. But they all go home to a place that looks like it was designed by Koolhaas. While the stage is elaborate, nothing and everything has happened on the show so far: No one’s made out, but there was a bubble bath. No one’s had a fist fight, but there was a brief texting scandal after a date. No one’s held hands (so far), but two cast members have been replaced. (The cast rotates within the season; nobody is expected to last all 46 episodes.) People like each other, some more than others. And when they don’t like each other, they talk about it.

Netflix

Each episode, which averages for a bite-size 30 minutes, is introduced by six Japanese celebrities, who become like family. They remind me every episode that the show is unscripted and the cast has access to a lovely home and car before appearing in important commentary breaks to react. The celebrities include a model who was born in Vienna and the youngest of the bunch, a 14-year-old boy who is sometimes absent from the segment “for reasons to him being young.” (Exams? Child actor labor laws? Too much orange juice? The kid drinks too much orange juice.) These celebrities are me and I am them, thinking out loud about whatever just happened (or didn’t happen) in these commentary breaks, delivered at the most precise of times between clips of the show. With great enthusiasm, they scream when I scream, react with terror when I react with terror, and bask in the successes of an otherwise innocent date when I grin from ear-to-ear. They’re even sitting together — on the couch, on the floor — in a living room to really close the gap between us. It makes for a truly satisfying viewing experience, and I say this despite my tiny New York City sized “living room.”

Netflix

Prior to Terrace House, it had been 17 years since I had seen a full season of Survivor (the first season, but everyone saw the first season). I quit The Hills after LC left. And despite the fact that it’s my job to cover the Kardashians like a hawk, I’ve never seen a full episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I’m happy to report that Terrace House has pulled me from my reality TV coma and I hope it stays on Netflix for a while. Anticipating with joy about what kinds of conversations six strangers will have has become part of my every day lately, and I’m quite comfortable here.

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Peggy Truong Entertainment Writer Peggy is Cosmopolitan.com’s entertainment writer, specializing in Leonardo DiCaprio, This Is Us, and the royals.

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