Welcome to Eden is exactly the kind of show that should be going viral on Netflix (as, indeed, it is). It has the good-looking young (if not particularly diverse) cast. It has the increasingly popular foreign language element (at least for English speakers - it’s Spanish), combined with a healthy dose of weird dystopia that ought to make it a spiritual successor to Squid Game. It has the requisite elements of danger and mystery.
The only thing it’s lacking, unfortunately, is action.
The story follows a group of young influencers – including our protagonist, Zoa, a biology student from Barcelona with a troubled family history – who are invited to the party of their lifetimes: the glitzy launch of an energy drink, on a deserted tropical island.
However, five of these influencers (Zoa, África, Charly, Aldo and Ibón) wake up the next morning alone. The partygoers have left, and in their place is a creepy eco-commune that calls itself Eden. Their mission? Unclear. But they’re definitely very keen on making sure that these new recruits never leave.
Read like that, you might think this is a thriller. But if it is, it’s an extremely slow paced one.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun ride. The first episode is zippy and bright, giving us shot after shot of beautiful people getting drunk in various locations (a bus, a yacht, an island, a club) as the influencers arrive at the promised Insta-friendly bash. And over the course of the show, character interactions are given the time to breathe. People stumble in on other people getting hot and heavy in the stables; a pair of recruits go snorkelling and chat about Mother Nature; some of them get into scraps about why they do or don’t want to leave.
Unfortunately, investing in said characters is easier said than done. The cast inhabit their roles well, and all of them do an excellent job of appearing suitably broken in the requisite different ways. Zoa, played by Amaia Aberasturi, is shy and sweet-natured in the kind of way that makes you want to protect her; super-influencer África (played by real-life Mexican pop star Belinda), is brash and self-centred; Ibón (Diego Garisa) is a musical whizz who’s seeking refuge from his abusive father; Aldo (Albert Baró)is a young entrepreneur desperately seeking a way off the island to get back to his clients, and Charly (Tomás Aguilera), well we know remarkably little about Charly, actually.
Unfortunately, most of them don’t get sufficient attention to their backstory to flesh out who they are – and by extension why they’re worth caring about. A traumatic history is all well and good, but if it’s delivered mostly in exposition then you feel cheated, and when it’s just a line or two at that then it’s easy to miss. As a result, the castaways’ journeys underdeveloped and their stories fall flat.
In addition, the whole thing feels a bit dated. Sure, give us the dystopia, the angst and the forbidden romance - but at least serve them with a twist. By giving it to us straight, the show uses tropes that were popular during the Hunger Games era ten years ago, making it feel slightly like we’ve stepped back in time.
It also doesn’t help that Welcome to Eden takes liberties with its writing. It’s hard to feel sympathetic when the only one of the five newbies who actually wants to escape the island (and who thinks the residents of Eden are a creepy cult) is shot down for being unreasonable. Could there be anything more reasonable?
But, all things considered, if you sit back and don’t think about it too hard, Welcome to Eden is classic binge material. The whole show has a dreamy, hypnotic, creepy feel to it, which makes it easy to devour one episode after another late into the night.
It’s also good fun watching the excellent Amaia Salamanca rule the roost as the clearly morally compromised Astrid, the leader of Eden. The way she switches from steely and ruthless to caring and compassionate in an instant as she goes about putting her mystery plan into action is worth the hiked Netflix fees in itself; guessing which members of her creepy commune are about to double-cross the newbies and which are sincere is almost as exciting. By playing off the emotional angst of her young charges - the initial invite to Eden started with a social media message, asking characters Are you happy? to which the answer seems inevitable - she draws them in via group therapy sessions designed to help them find their purpose. Which lies with her, naturally.
Overall, Welcome to Eden delivers every ingredient for a YA hit: copious gobs of romantic interest; a fair amount of angst; young people struggling against charismatic dictators. If you want to see good looking people doing things with other good looking people, then this is for you.
If you want the next Squid Game, though, you’ll be disappointed.
