Friday night I plopped down on the couch after a long day and of course, grabbed the remote and headed to Netflix. The thing I miss about having regular (cable) TV is that sometimes I just don’t want to think about what to watch and then choose. With regular TV, you can just channel surf until something is interesting and is sort of good enough and you leave it there. This was that kind of night. I’d finished all the other shows I was watching, including YOU (netflix), In the Dark (a CW show, surprisingly, that I think I watched with amazon prime) and another recent documentary series called This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy with Kal Penn (also on Amazon) which was pretty awesome, and so having no other shows begging for my time, when I went to Netflix, this new docuseries called The Goop Lab with Gwyneth Paltrow popped up and I gave it a try.
I preface all of this to tell you that I am not necessarily a goop fan, have only been to the website maybe 3 times total and didn’t stay long, and haven’t always been the biggest Gwyneth Paltrow fan, even though she happens to star in one of my all time favorite movies EVER, Shakespeare in Love (in which I feel as though Joseph Fiennes should have won an Oscar, and of the 13 nominations that movie got, he wasn’t included in one of them and he was brilliant – I was obsessed, can you tell? 😉 )… ANYWAY…
All THAT said, Paltrow has always seemed a little smug to men when it involved goop (and has been caught up in many controversial “wellness” claims – though I do think people take everything far too seriously and if alternative medicine does happen to work for you, then why deny it?) and so I hit play thinking I’d watch a few minutes and and that was it…
That was not the case.
The first episode that played from the pop-up home screen was called The Pleasure is Ours. I only note this because when I look at the episode list, it’s 3rd in line, but somehow it played first, and even as comfortable as I am in my own skin and with my body, this episode was AWKWARD, to say the least. But it was also kind of great because it’s something we never talk about and is rarely portrayed in movies the way it is with men/boys (though it is a recurring theme in the show I mentioned about In the Dark). It should be noted that in this episode you will see nudity and well, a woman teaching other women how to reach pleasure and orgasm. And I even feel a little awkward talking about it here, like this, as you may be able to tell by my run-on and awkward sentences. ANYWAY, it was interesting and thought-provoking, and after it was over, when the next episode started, I did not turn it off. In fact, I watched all 6 episodes that night and am willing to say that my entire opinion of GP has changed from slightly negative (or just maybe untrusting) to totally positive and much more relatable than I ever gave her credit for.
The show is good – in the fact that it is entertaining and somewhat interesting to watch. I am in no way under the false delusion that I should be trying any of the things they all tried (or use any of her products on the goop site -which they weren’t AT ALL pushing on the show – or if they were, I wouldn’t have known), but it did look like fun – sometimes. There is only that one awkward episode about pleasure and I mean, had it not been the first one that popped on, I may not have watched the entire series. Gwyneth was also noticeably uncomfortable in a cute way, and no, she did not in any way participate in this experiment in this episode. But she participates in almost all of the others.
In the other episodes, they talk about alternative beauty treatments and mental health and wellness and alternative medicine and techniques for dealing with those issues as well as exploring ideas that may seem “out there” to quote the show. They cover a wide range of topics that fall under those categories and GP and her colleagues (or team members? not sure what they refer to each other as) all act as guinea pigs in the studies while also talking to specialists in a perfectly lit room, in bright, crisp and pretty outfits (which they probably sell, because actually, that’s smart marketing – just saying, lol).
Anyway, if you’re looking for a new show to be entertained by that might also make you think, this one is definitely interesting and if nothing else, there are cute outfits and also the benefit of seeing Gwyneth as a real human being that makes the show all the more interesting 🙂
Watch The Goop Lab trailer here
NOTE: The show is not for children. Rated Mature Audience Only
This page has more info from each of the episodes if you’re interested.
Have you watched? What are your thoughts? Would love to hear your take!
Are you a goop fan/reader? Have you purchased any of the goop products or recommended products? What are your thoughts and how was your overall experience?
