Floor Is Lava: That's All You Need to Know

Over the past week, I kept hearing about Floor Is Lava, a new game show on Netflix. People kept raving about how silly but wonderful it was. So over the weekend, I took the plunge. I visited my parents in the middle of my binge, so I made them watch it with me too, and by the end, my mom couldn't walk across the living room without me yelling, "Noooo, the floor is LAVA!"

The show is based on a game you may have played as a child, where you pretended the floor was bubbling with lava; so to get from one part of the room to another, you had to jump on furniture and navigate across without touching the floor. The show has taken that simple concept, and elevated it to a bonkers game show level. Here, teams consisting of two to three players are introduced to a room that is filled with 80,000 gallons of roiling, slippery "lava." Each room has a theme, like "kitchen," "bedroom," or a "planetarium" complete with a flat Earth and lunar module. These rooms are filled with obstacles and teams have to devise a path to get from the entrance to the exit without falling into the lava. There are always multiple paths, and usually teammates need to split up, because one path will lead to a key that helps to open up another path and make it easier to get to the exit. 

First off, the set design is brilliantly inventive. There's a lot of joy that went into designing these rooms, and you have to appreciate the silly puns (see the aforementioned flat Earth) that abound as teams make their way. There's also constant commentary from the show's host, Rutledge Wood, who is hyper-enthusiastic and having way more fun that anyone else as he gently mocks everyone on their deadly journey. And then, of course, there's the lava. Its composition is a proprietary secret, but they have done a wonderful job of making it glow and bubble, and it is horrifically slippery and makes every course a hundred times more difficult to navigate as it covers the obstacles and make them even harder to traverse. 

Which brings us to the teams. These people have fully bought into the silly, fun insanity and they are game for anything. When someone slips and falls into the lava, their teammates will scream in despair (whilst also giggling) as though this truly is the end for that person and that they won't shortly be reunited in the team interview after the course is complete. Everyone playing this game is perfectly pleasant, but what I find truly fascinating about this show are the gender dynamics at play.

In order to win, you want to get as many teammates across to the exit without dying. And if there's a tie (i.e. two teams all managed to get one person across), then the tiebreaker is who managed to get across fastest. As a result, you need to be quick but also cooperate. When teams are composed solely of men, there's a tendency towards "every man for himself." Which means that almost no one makes it across and everyone dies a fiery death. However, if you have an all-women team, or at least one woman on your team, there's a much more collaborative strategy. And that's something you quickly learn as you binge watch ten episodes of Floor Is Lava. Yes, it helps to be hyper-flexible with great upper body strength so you can sashay along monkey bars and lunge across six-foot jumps. But even if you're not that fit, you can survive the course if everyone lends each other a helping hand. Sometimes, all you need is someone to catch you as you take a running leap on to an ottoman, or someone behind you to push you on the giant canoe so that you have enough momentum to jump to the exit. The women inherently seem to understand this and will strategize to ensure everyone can make it across. And sometimes, they will sacrifice themselves so that their teammates have an easier time getting across. As opposed to a lot of the men, for whom each course is just a personal showcase for brute strength, which inevitably leads to a face full of lava.

Yes I know, Floor Is Lava is a silly game show and not some great social science experiment. But as my friend Laura joked, the people on this show who aren't looking out for each other are probably the same ones who are currently walking around refusing to wear a mask. Given that we are all currently stuck indoors, this show serves as a great microcosm of humanity and the different personalities at play as we become increasingly reliant on global cooperation to get through a crisis. Wait, did this blog post suddenly become a public health manifesto? Never mind. Back to the matter at hand. Floor Is Lava is a raucous good time. If you're bored at home, this is a great way to while away a few hours. I just fast forwarded straight to the courses as I didn't care for team introductions and whatnot, so you can set your own pace through this show. But by the end, I guarantee you might start clambering on your sofa or swiveling on your office chair as you try to hop on to your bed. Why? Because the Floor. Is. Lava!