“Billionaires' Bunker” is a missed opportunity Netflix continues to miss the mark

Few original series have managed to take root on Netflix as strongly as the Spanish ones. Among them stands out Money Heist, which became a flagship title for the platform, to the point of spawning a successful spin-off, Berlin, now in its second season. Not every attempt, however, had the same impact: many productions quickly faded, while others unexpectedly found an audience. This is the case of Elite, which managed to reinvent itself with new generations of characters, or Olympo, released recently and although not yet as widely known, considered by some even more interesting. In this landscape, the contender for the vacant throne is Billionaires’ Bunker, created by Álex Pina, the mastermind behind Money Heist and Locked Up, together with Esther Martínez Lobato, with whom he had already signed Sky Rojo (2021-2023), also for Netflix.

Expectations for the show were therefore high. Intrigues, murky relationships, complex plans to unravel. But it’s impossible not to notice, while watching, how Pina seems trapped in the very same mechanisms he once perfected. Stuck, immobile in setting in motion a story that, for eight episodes, spins tiredly in circles, rehashing already-tested patterns and, above all, reaching the ground zero of entertainment—neither stimulating nor provocative for the viewer. Everything is already laid out for the audience of Billionaires’ Bunker, where every scene is repeated countless times, just like the dialogues, merely to stretch out the thin broth of a single idea. A cognitive annihilation that reduces the show to just another generic soap opera.

On the brink of an imminent nuclear war, a group of billionaires is taken into an expensive secret bunker where they can safely spend their days in sophisticated rooms and luxurious common areas during Earth’s darkest hours. A temporary hideout becomes permanent when World War III breaks out outside, which the guests witness from the small screens of their gilded cage. From the premise of Billionaires’ Bunker—so contemporary, considering we are constantly on the verge of collapse and with billionaires as both victims and perpetrators—the series could have unfolded into a sharp and venomous reflection on the world’s trajectory, tackling themes from the fall of ideologies and economic empires to class disparities and social struggle. Instead, what it limits itself to, and mostly aspires to, is narrating how a group of people locked in a bunker would rather talk about sex and feelings, betrayals and petty dramas while death rages outside.

The narrative and lexical impoverishment of the show, with its supposedly complex twists that are in fact of a disarming banality, waters down any possibility of redemption for the story—the same lifeline the characters themselves don’t know how to cling to. Nor do they care, as they seem to forget within an episode that the world above their heads is burning, everything has collapsed, and nothing will ever be the same again. The idea that, in the end, the rich don’t care what happens to those dying outside as long as they are comfortable, could have been valid and infinitely worthy of analysis. But it soon becomes clear that this is not at all the intent of Billionaires’ Bunker, which instead opts for the most gaudy melodrama. A superficial and unbalanced carousel. A series that shows Netflix has proven capable of vitalizing its original content, but also left behind plenty of missteps.