"As the star of Free Solo a feature documentary once again so nerve-racking that the only way to comfortably enjoy it was under the influence of industrial sphincter relaxants he has long been the poster boy of people climbing up stuff without ropes. But the difference between Free Solo and Skyscraper Live is vast. The former was a meticulously structured account of his attempt to climb El Capitan unaided, edited to wring out the maximum level of drama possible."
"However, an hour and a half is a long time to watch anything. And in the case of Skyscraper Live, you were essentially watching a guy repeat the same set of movements hundreds of times in a row. You invariably kept finding yourself zoning out a little, maybe checking your phone or going to make a cup of tea, because the human mind simply wasn't designed to sustain a state of panic for that long."
"Well, have your balls descended back out of your body yet? Netflix's Skyscraper Live has been and gone, and it may well qualify as the single most stressful viewing experience on record. Alex Honnold's unassisted ascent of the 508 metre Taipei 101 was an absolutely extraordinary achievement. Whether or not it represents the future of television, though, is a completely different matter."
Alex Honnold performed an unassisted ascent of the 508 metre Taipei 101, an extraordinary physical achievement. The live broadcast presented continuous, unedited footage of Honnold climbing for an hour and a half. The live format amplified perceived risk because there was no opportunity to reedit in case of an accident. Watching the climb involved repetitive movements repeated hundreds of times, causing viewers to zone out intermittently. The human mind is not designed to sustain prolonged panic, so the experience combined long stretches of boredom with sudden spikes of terror. The climb benefitted from the inherently dramatic architecture of Taipei 101.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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