Terrace House: Boys x Girls Next Door (2012)

Terrace House: Boys x Girls Next Door was the first season of a show which was later revived in collaboration with Netflix and was exposed through these later seasons to international audiences and became a hit. The original series covered the lives of six rotating cast members one episode per week for nearly two years from October, 2012 through September, 2014. If you have seen any of the other seasons on Netflix, then you know the set up: three men and three women share a house in Tokyo and we get to watch their lives together.

This series of the show takes a while to reach the form of the later series. Initially, there was only one host, YOU. She was joined by Reina Triendl in episode 14, and four more panelists join in episode 27 including Hiroomi Tosaka, a member of the band Sandaime J Soulbrothers and the only panelist who did not return for the Netflix revivals. If you like the Netflix series, you might be tempted to skip the earlier episodes; however, doing so would cause you to miss several iconic moments and the introduction of key house members who play important roles in the peak episodes of this series.

Another important difference between this series and the subsequent series is that the time between filming and broadcast was initially an astonishingly short one week(!). That is, because the housemates can and do watch the show on the show, they could see what their housemates had said when they were not in the room from the week before. This fact only really has a impact two or three times over the course of the series, and the length of the lag slowly increased so by the end there was a three week gap between filming and broadcast. Nevertheless, if you ever imagined what a reality series would be like if the participants could immediately see how they were portrayed, then this is the show for you.

In general, the Boys x Girls Next Door typical episode is about the same in quality to episodes of the later series: you still have the amazing cinematography that never has a camera or mic pack in shot, you still have the slowly developing relationships and romances, and you still have the comedy relief and empathy of the panel who break in to provide context and color - but do note that unlike later series, there is often a panel segment after the closing door sound. However, the peaks of this series are higher than those of subsequent seasons. There are events which unfold which could not have been scripted which are likely to touch you more than anything which has happened in the subsequent seasons. You are likely to laugh harder, cry more, and have your heart lifted higher by a romantic connection than in any subsequent season to date.

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