Formula 1: Drive to SurviveNetflix
Car racing is big business in 2019, which makes it no surprise Netflix has chosen to produce a new docuseries covering the worldwide insanity that is Formula 1. It’s just a shame the series is so… standard.
There’s nothing that spectacular happening in Drive to Survive. If you have an expectation going into it, it’s very likely you’re going to have that expectation met. Perhaps the best thing that can be said is, if you know nothing of the ins and outs associated with Formula 1, Drive to Survive is a very worthy beginners guide to the concept.
Part of this is for sure connected to the docuseries fatigue that’s been plaguing Netflix the last few years. While the majority of the problem lies in the streamer’s insistence to cover every grizzly murder to ever take place in the United States, it also can’t be understated how much the company milks other subjects as well.
The peak came somewhere around the time we got a six-part docuseries about dogs called Dogs. The simple fact is Netflix can and will produce docuseries about anything it wants and that’s the category Drive to Survive falls under. A very clear, “yeah, sure, why not this?”
The one true bright spot to the whole thing (or not so bright spot if you’re a documentary purist), is it’s clear the series was produced in conjunction with the organization because the level of access granted to the series could only come with obvious stipulations that the product not be portrayed in a negative light.
The B-roll is very exciting, but in the end, there is nothing particularly interesting about the series. It’s a classic sports story following various racers over the course of a single racing season. There’s not much more to it than that.
Sometimes a Netflix doc hits it out of the park. Sometimes it falls flat. But, sometimes it just falls right smack in the middle of these two plains of existence. That’s the deal with Drive to Survive. It’s right in the middle.
Overall, Formula 1: Drive to Survive is a completely inoffensive crash course on all things Formula 1 that Formula 1 wants you to know about. It will make for excellent background while doing chores or scrolling social media for the internet’s latest viral sensation, but that’s about it. It is what it is and nothing more.
Formula 1: Drive to Survive premieres Friday, March 8th on Netflix
Be the first to comment