Season 1 |
Episode Guide
The Healing Trip
Cold Comfort
The Pleasure Is Ours
The Health-Span Plan
The Energy Experience
Are You Intuit?
Richard Branson once said “Allow yourself to dream big – it’s those that laugh in the face of the conventional and shake things up who move the world forward.” and yet The Goop Lab is here to try and dispel that idea. Acting as a six-episode descent into a nightmarish world of pseudo-science and dangerous self-indulgence, Gwyneth Paltrow’s reality TV series (because it’s not a documentary, we’re told this is to “entertain”, not to be used for medical purposes) may be a breezy series to watch given its six 30 minute long episodes, but it’s something we don’t recommend watching, even if you’re curious to see whether the negative press is justified.
The six episodes remain rigidly the same in structure, diving into a different topic and combining the words of an expert in that field with Goop employees who test the theories for themselves. From diving into an ice lake to test the Wim Hof breathing technique through to dieting to test your biological age, all of these episodes are deliberately edited to show just enough science to make these concepts feel reasonably believable without ever showing anything subjective or impartial. Any of the employees who do express negativity or critiques to what’s happening are mysteriously omitted for the rest of the episode.
While at a push the first three episodes are actually okay, albeit a little boring given their structure, unfortunately the latter trio take a turn for the pseudo-worse as we see the Goopers tackle psychics and mediums with a startling lack of subtlety and ultimately doing nothing to enhance the image of Goop. Not that it matters of course, if you’ve made it to the end of this show then the Netflix viewing figures will put a tick next to your name that you’ve contributed toward the views. Even as someone who does this as a living, it’s still a bitter pill to swallow knowing my name will be next to the viewing figures for this show.
It also doesn’t help that The Goop Lab isn’t particularly exciting either. At times its outright boring and some of the interviews drag on unnecessarily. Paltrow is by far the worst part of the show too, showing a mixture of incredulous stupidity in the face of being educated about sexual organs and whinging when going on a 5-day diet as part of the experiments.
I could go on but at its best, The Goop Lab is hilarious mis-step that shows the dangers of pseudo-science and parades ignorance and self-indulgent behaviour as entertainment. At its worst, The Goop Lab is a dangerous platform that could lay the foundation for more of this “fake news” style to seep onto the streaming platform. Even if you’re curious about this one, it’s not worth watching. It’s not exciting or entertaining and the show does little to improve the image of this company.
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Verdict - 1/10
1/10