Buying London sparks huge debate among Netflix viewers just hours after debut: ‘Hateable’

Buying London, the UK’s answer to the hit Netflix series Selling Sunset, has received a chilly response from early viewers – with one review dubbing it “probably the most hateable TV show ever made”.

Arriving on Netflix on Wednesday (22 May), the series delves into the world of luxury real estate in London and follows property mogul Daniel Daggers and his ambitious team of agents at DDRE Global as they work to offload some of the capital’s most high-end properties.

The world of luxury property has been a winning formula for the streaming platform in recent years. Selling Sunset, which tracks realtors at the Los Angeles-based Oppenheim Group, has been renewed for an eighth season and has spawned spin-offs such as Selling The OC and the Florida-based Selling Tampa.

However, the formula doesn’t seem to be as winning across the Atlantic, with critics and viewers alike sharing their frosty views on the show, mere hours after its release.

“I switched Buying London off at the photoshoot in the first episode, insufferable is not a big enough word for these clowns,” one unimpressed viewer wrote on X.

“Wow, #BuyingLondon is worse than I expected,” added another. “It is so obviously scripted and boring, one episode is more than enough.”

For The Guardian, reviewer Rebecca Nicholson called the programme “boring and infuriating” and awarded the show a landmark zero stars, criticising its format as well as its focus on extreme wealth amid a cost of living crisis.

As well as this, she dubs the show “probably the most hateable TV show ever made”.

“Obviously this will be widely watched, since gawping at rich people and their wallpaper might as well be a national sport,” Nicholson writes.

“But aside from the politics, aside from the ostentatious, largely off-camera billionaires, as a reality TV show, it is tired. On programmes like this, people play caricatures of themselves, you hope, but we’ve seen all these characters before.”

The Times’s review tells potential viewers to “prepare to be faintly appalled yet oddly transfixed” in its two-star take. In a critique of the show’s apparent lack of authenticity, critic Carol Midgley writes: “It all feels as fake as an oligarch’s tooth veneers.”

Meanwhile, the show was also criticised for feelings of falseness by The Telegraph.

Anita Singh’s two-star review reads: “You wonder how many of these houses the team actually sell, because the production has such an air of unreality. It’s post-truth television. The people on screen aren’t reciting a script, they’ve just learned – through prolonged exposure to “scripted reality” shows – to actually speak like this.

“They know what is required of them. The whole thing plays out like one long Instagram reel.”

Buying London is streaming on Netflix now.

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