The New Stanford Prison Experiment review – surely no one believes this insulting TV show is real?

Netflix’s *The New Stanford Prison Experiment* puts volunteers in guard and prisoner roles inside part of a real county correctional facility, presenting the setup as a study of whether power corrupts. The review argues that the series is better understood as reality television than credible science, since participants know they are being filmed and the show actively creates conflict.

The series has 30 participants: eight guards, including three women, and 22 male prisoners. Its producers divide the guards into day and night teams, ask them to elect a head guard and later switch some participants’ roles; several people leave. Across six episodes, the review says these reality-TV devices and repeated explanations undermine the premise, though it finds some interest in how contestants behave when they know the situation is artificial.