‘Wonka’s The Golden Ticket’ review: enter a world of pure humiliation

I t makes sense to turn Charlie And The Chocolate Factory into a reality TV show.

After all, it’s a beloved piece of IP that’s recognised the world over and the whole premise of the book hinges on a competition format.

The stuff writes itself.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to be any good.

READ MORE: The best TV shows of 2026… so far! Wonka’s The Golden Ticket , Netflix ’s latest reality TV show, is very, very loosely adapted from the 1971 musical Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory which was based on Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

This bingeable series takes 24 Americans and puts them in a real-life recreation of the magical chocolate factory we all know and love.

Some serious money has been thrown at it, too.

The set is littered with gadgets and features a faithful recreation of the famous main room, complete with edible blades of grass and a ‘chocolate’ river.

At stake is enough money to pay the winner a six-figure salary for the next 30 years (or around $3million).

To claim it, the contestants have to undergo a series of challenges and survive being eliminated.

With that much cash involved, things predictably turn nasty very quickly.

The problems with Wonka’s The Golden Ticket are many and varied.

But let’s start with Wonka himself.

Nothing says late-stage capitalism like the Netflix powers-that-be setting their AI generator to ‘ Gene Wilder ’ as the voice of this whole endeavour.