Nine Perfect Strangers seems like it was written by a Prestige TV algorithm

BuzzFeed News

"Prestige television is omnipresent at this point," says Scacchi Koul. "It sometimes seems like there’s a race to be The Most Serious Television Show, to pull off the most high-concept execution of a story, with the most contemporary relevance, gorgeous visuals, stirring soundtrack, moody opening credits, and three to five very famous actors who are daring to stoop to the gutters of television. The Undoing, The White Lotus, The Flight Attendant, Mare of Easttown, The Queen’s Gambit — we watch them all. At first, Nine Perfect Strangers looks like yet another prestige offering. It stars Nicole Kidman (always a tell) and several other big-name actors. It’s an adaptation of another novel by Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty, and boy, does it feel like it: There's a stunning set and white ladies in caftans swanning around in their misery. But unlike some of its predecessors, the eight-episode drama is trash in prestige clothing. It seems to have been written by an algorithm that fed on every critically successful drama of the last 20 years, then spat out a meandering, expository, and convoluted approximation. A major part of its allure is in its marketing, the presupposition that it has to be good because it looks like great shows that came before it and because it has a cast that absolutely slaps. Yet Nine Perfect Strangers is unequivocally and almost unabashedly bad; I will watch every second of it, probably twice." Koul adds that Nine Perfect Strangers "has everything going for it, which makes its failures even more striking...The show takes every cliché from every drama. Perhaps that's why it's so oddly watchable...But don’t expect Nine Perfect Strangers to pull off what its predecessors did. Big Little Lies and The White Lotus were satisfying and gripping, perfect for binge-watching or slow-drip viewing. Their characters were compelling and upsetting, frustrating and familiar. Nine Perfect Strangers is the Diet Pepsi of the prestige television landscape; it seems to bear the same markers of its brethren, but god, when you suck it back, does it ever taste like sh*t."

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• Nine Perfect Strangers tackles the "orientalist displays" of the western wellness industry: "Nine Perfect Strangers comes across as a decently self-aware show, literally featuring an Instagram lifestyle influencer whose obsession with social media seems to be fracturing her marriage," says Kylie Cheung. "Its invocation of the west's predominantly white wellness industry and the industry's penchant for orientalism seem like smart satire, a critique of the tactics and deceits of the typical white, wellness industry charlatan. As audiences struggle to decipher what Masha's game is, and what twists and traps Tranquillum inevitably has in store for its nine, carefully curated guests, there's no wonder the characters seem to fully buy Tranquillum as an ordinary wellness resort — it certainly presents that way. The wellness industrial complex and its 'superfoods,' yoga, meditation and spirituality comprise a vast, trillion-dollar, cutthroat capitalist enterprise, that charms customers and followers with Asian-coded language and imagery, and Asian-influenced wellness practices and foods. Despite this, it's often mystical white women like Masha who are cashing in on the west's fetishization of eastern culture and spirituality."
• Regina Hall says Carmel required a total transformation: Hall was filming Showtime's Black Monday when she had to re-record some of her Nine Perfect Strangers dialogue. Upon entering the studio, she realized Carmel’s cadence was so unlike her own that she’d need to hear the original audio in order to replicate it. “I was like, ‘Oh, I forgot Carmel talks like that,’” Hall says.
• Manny Jacinto explains Yao's precarious love triangle