Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ready, Set, Love’ On Netflix, Where A Woman Goes On A Reality Dating Show In A World Where There Are Few Men

Imagine a parallel universe where there are only a few hundred men versus millions of women; what would that look like? And then what would happen if there was a dating show offering up some of the limited number of men for marriage? That’s the premise of a new Netflix dramedy from Thailand.

READY, SET, LOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “THE CITY, 18 YEARS AGO.” In a darkened streetscape, people with flashlights are looking for escapees from a place called “The Farm.” The 7-year-old is hiding, and when the people looking for him go elsewhere, we see the name on his wristband as he puts his hands over his face.

The Gist: In a parallel universe, an epidemic in the 1970s created a situation where the vast majority of babies born, either naturally or via artificial insemination, are female. By the present day, there are only about 300 men left in Thailand, and they all live at a place called The Farm. In a government-sponsored reality series called Ready, Set, Love, one hundred women compete to get married to one of five men dubbed “The Gentlemen.” The winners end up living on The Farm, their families being taken care of by the government.

Day (Kemisara Paladesh), who works at a convenience store, thinks this is all a lot of garbage, but her younger sister May (Neennara Boonnithipaisit) doesn’t think so. For the new season of the show, there’s a lottery for the final five slots, with women able to enter by scanning a code under the caps of milk cartons. May has bought out the store with the hopes of being one of the winners of the lottery.

Actually, what she hopes is that she wins so Day can go on the show; May has cancer, and after chemo, she depends on oxygen to get her through her day.

On the night that the lottery winners are introduced, Day goes to get some street food with her friend Val (Jaytiya Naiwattanakul), who’s buying because she just got a job on the production staff of Ready, Set, Love. She’s shocked when she sees on the big screens in the square that she’s the final lottery winner.

She at first refuses to go to the audition, but realizes there’s free food and booze there, so she shows up. There she meets her fellow “lotto girls” as well as “The Organic Gang” — women with a mom and a dad — led by the tall and indifferent Chanel (Nichapalak Thongkham). When The Gentlemen are introduced, Day is mostly interested in raiding the buffet, which boomerangs on her, causing her to run to the bathroom. She inadvertently runs into the men’s room, and stares blankly at urinals, which she’s never seen before.

After she does her business, she runs into one of The Gentlemen, the brooding red-clad Son (Pngtiwat Tangwancharoen). She wants an autograph for May; he accuses her of stalking him and staring at him while he was peeing.

Day gets a call that May has collapsed and is in the ER; she wants to quit, but the producer, Jenny (Natthaweeranuch Thongmee), knows a good story when she sees it. She informs Day that if she wins, May will be able to take advantage of state-run health care, fully paid. This helps Day decide to stick around, and makes her determined to win.

The 100 women play the first game, “Know Your Date.” Somehow, via May’s repeated stories about The Gentlemen she gleaned from social media, she manages to get the answers to the trivia questions about the men correct, leaving her as the only lotto winner remaining. Before the day is out, though, she finds that the once disdainful Son wants her to stick around, for reasons only he seems to know.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Ready, Set, Love feels like it’s a dating version of Squid Game, only much funnier and a far lower body count (i.e. zero).

Our Take: Ready, Set, Love is one of those shows where you likely know what the outcome of the show is going to be, but buy into the journey that gets you there. Are we certain that Day and Son are going to get married, live happily ever after, and get May the care she needs? No. But we are sure that Day, who is a decided underdog in this situation, is going to continue to make her way through the fictional reality show one way or another, motivated by May’s health.

We do find out at the end of the episode why Son wants Day to keep going on the show; when she takes off her sash to quit, he sees a half-coin she wears around her neck. It recalls that time when he was seven, trying to escape The Farm like we saw in the first scene. Apparently, the urinal was not the first time that Son and Day met each other, but it only seems that Son has realized this. Much of this story will likely involve Son re-bonding with Day, and probably holding out on his reasons, and that adds a nice depth to what on the surface just looks like a fictional dating tournament.

One of the things we wonder about is the whole idea of a society that somehow manages to continue with one gender almost depleted. That means it’s a world full of women, but there seems to be no mention of how the world is when ruled by them. There’s a frenzy about Ready, Set, Love that makes the women of Thailand desperate to become wives, which feels weirdly retrograde given the parallel universe that’s being set up. Perhaps as the season goes on, we’ll see more of an examination of this issue, because the first episode really didn’t delve into it at all.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: We see why Son changed his mind about Day, in a flashback to when Son escaped The Farm when he was a child.

Sleeper Star: Jaytiya Naiwattanakul is funny as Val, and we wonder if she’ll risk her job to help her friend on the show in future episodes.

Most Pilot-y Line: The “II Save You” dance that The Gentlemen have to do during the elimination round is a little ridiculous.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Ready, Set, Love is a cute show that likely has a predictable outcome. But its got a main character that viewers can root for and tells its story with style.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.