Look, don't quibble with me – I hear the dissenters already, wondering if Squid Game really counts as science fiction, and I won't listen. It tells a dystopian story of made-up, secretive, murderous game shows with arcane and brutal rules and could be straight out of a classic JG Ballard sci-fi novel.
Now the show's titanic second season is closer than it's ever been, and I can't wait (along with millions of others). Netflix is really ramping up its hype, too, with another full-length trailer that gives us a much clearer sense of what we can expect from the next season.
For one thing, it immediately clarifies that the various returning characters we've glimpsed in the last few teaser trailers aren't necessarily being forced back into the new game. Rather, they seem to have decided to participate of their own free will.
Perhaps they all want to disrupt things and stop them going smoothly, or perhaps they're being blackmailed – doubtless we'll find out when the season drops. It also looks like we'll be meeting some new opponents, including one dastardly purple-haired guy who looks like he's out for blood from the start.
One thing that the trailers had previously been quite careful about was giving any glimpses of new games, but we see at least one fairly clearly this time around. It involves some sort of giant carousel that all the contestants start on, and we can assume that it'll be a spinning top of fun.
There are also some moments that take place outside, including some explosive action in a forest – could that be a look at how the games start to fall apart, if outside forces manage to locate and disrupt them? It's pretty clear that we can expect things to break out of the compound this time around, and I can't wait to find out how.
Netflix is banking on Squid Game 2 to power it through the holidays and confirm its place as the best streaming service in most people's minds. The good news is that we're now less than a month away from its 26 December release date!
