Netflix took a page out of the old network television playbook with its Skyscraper Live. 52 years after ABC captivated the world when they aired Evel Knievel’s attempt to jump Idaho’s Snake River Canyon on a motorcycle, Netflix brought in Alex Honnold, the subject of the Oscar winning documentary Free Solo, to climb the 1,600 foot Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan — without the aid of any ropes or equipment.
Free Solo, for those who may be unfamiliar, documented Honnold’s 2017 “free solo” ascent of the 2,900 foot mountain El Capitan located in Yosemite National Park. A free solo is when a climber doesn’t use any ropes or protective equipment, they just use climbing shoes and chalk for their hands. The film, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin was an astounding mix of breathtaking cinematography, and a gripping story of one man’s quest to do the impossible.
Now, if you were looking for a live adaptation of Free Solo — you’re not getting it with Skyscraper Live. Instead, what you’re getting is the classic Netflix gourmet cheeseburger. Breathtaking, anxiety-inducing cinematography is what really sells this special. Wide shots of Honnold climbing thousands of feet in the air, with the crowded cityscape of Taipei in the background is the stuff of dropping jaws and cold sweats. And of course, his epic selfie atop the building was unforgettable.
This combined with the question of whether Honnold could make the ascent is really what Netflix deploys to keep the audience engaged. Unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough to sustain interest, as the climb became very monotonous (something the commentators acknowledged). And this is where Skyscraper Live really falters. It takes everything that made Free Solo special and reheats it as a filler during the quiet moments. Training montages, pieces on his family, and an oddly placed commercial for Netflix’s Crunch Lab, are all tepid attempts to build drama and a human connection.
The commentary was no help at all either. It felt as though they were asked to go out and improv the entire show, which resulted in them detracting from the sheer magnitude of the climb and sucking all the dramatic air out of the special. They were rarely instructed to lay out and let Honnold talk, as they often just talked over him. No one involved in the commentary or analysis seemed to know when it was the right time to react or lead in for a new pre-recorded segment. Seth Rollins of the WWE was working hard to bring the human element into his commentary, but after a while his shock and surprise became background noise. There were also numerous production issues that also hamstrung the special taking you right of the moment.
No one was asking for Citizen Kane here. Skyscraper Live was a stunt spectacular that was meant to grab an audience on a mid-winter’s evening. It’s built upon the premise of how can one man climb this huge building with no rope or gear, and how could he survive it all? And Netflix succeeded in creating this moment. However, there’s nothing in this special outside of panic-inducing visuals that make it more than a disposable, buzzy 90 minutes that’ll be forgotten by most by this time next year (outside of that selfie, as it’ll be on Netflix’s sizzle reel for years).
