Netflix Announces 5 New Unscripted Shows

Netflix is beefing up its unscripted series offerings, announcing Tuesday the addition of five new series.

At the Edinburgh International TV Festival Tuesday, Brandon Riegg, VP of Unscripted Originals and Acquisitions for Netflix, announced the "game changer" addition of four new original unscripted series and one original special that will debut on the streaming platform later this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The first of the five new unscripted programs is The Final Table, a global culinary competition series that features the world's most renowned chefs fighting for a spot at the top table. Created and executive produced by MasterChef and MasterChef Junior producers Robin Ashbrook and Yasmin Shackleton, the series will see 12 teams of two chefs from around the world cooking the national dishes of Mexico, Spain, England, Brazil, France, Japan, the U.S., India and Italy.

Death By Magic, produced by Hell's Kitchen and American Ninja Warrior producer A. Smith, follows British magician Drummond Money-Coutts (DMC) as he attempts to "uncover the stories of magicians who died performing the most dangerous stunts ever attempted." Money-Coutts will travel the world to track down where the fatal performances took place and to figure out what exactly went wrong.

Giving subscribers a second dose of magic, Derren Brown: Sacrifice, produced by Vaudeville Productions, will see psychological illusionist Derren Brown return with a new special in which he creates a scenario where "his subject has to decide whether or not to make the ultimate sacrifice: laying down his life for a complete stranger he wouldn't normally identify with."

Sunderland Till I Die, the fourth unscripted program set to debut later this year, is a documentary series about the British football club SAFC (Sunderland Association Football Club) that will take viewers through the highs and lows of the season.

The fifth unscripted series, Flinch, is an action comedy game show set on a remote farm in Ireland where "brave and foolish contestants gather to test their nerve against three fiendish games." The premises of the show is simple: if they flinch, there will be consequences.

These five likely will not be the last unscripted series to come to the streaming platform throughout the remainder of 2018 and into 2019, as Riegg also outlined his vision of expanding both reality and unscripted programs not only in the United States, but throughout the world.

"We are looking for stories that resonate globally. We are a U.S. company, but global network," he said, adding that Netflix wants to "increase" their volume and is "looking to do programming from around the world."

The newest announcements come on the heels of the streaming platform's proposal to introduce more than 700 new original titles in 2018.