User reviews

There are two sides to the debate of Netflix's The Goop Lab (and yes, I'm aware of how late I am in properly tackling this pile of garbage, but you know what they say about the punctuality of wizards). I wouldn't be fair if I didn't let both camps have their say:

On one hand, the boost given to Gwyneth Paltrow and her mystic alt-medicine has been deemed a dangerous win for pseudoscience (I certainly saw more Instagram influencers try to sell me crystals, seance tickets, and anti-vampire oils after the show dropped). On the other, the show supposedly empowers women and is about the "female spirit", which is one of those things that sound decidedly more infantilizing ("Harnessing positive energy from the universe through the use of soul stones and mediation is the sorta thing you chicks think you can do, right?") than regular sexism. Which side is sounding more rational?

This is the 2015 "Why must we hate what teen girls love" drama all over again. When people say that astrology, belief in ghosts, Twilight, boy bands, and other laughingstocks are interests inherent to women (which must be the REAL reason we mock those things, and so I guess a true ally sticks up for pseudoscience and Products by Brand), that is a far bigger insult than suggesting that faith in pseudoscience is strictly for idiots. I'm not the one saying "women".

The Goop Lab, to be more exact, documents a wider array of alternative healing methods than what you might see in the "Law of Attraction" hashtag on Instagram. These include psychedelic drug use (Don't be a square, maan!), various life extension scams, and mediumship.

And remember, the show is purely meant to entertain, so surely no-one will take these methods to heart and start emptying their bank accounts over pussy candles, enchanted vagina plugs, or someone making "so generic they must be true" guesses about a dead friend of theirs? You read the disclaimer, didn't you?

It is true that The Goop Lab isn't strictly intent on converting you to the Goop side; to make you forego medicine in favor of contacting the dead (whatever that achieves in terms of energy) or taking enough shrooms to believe you did. But how does Netflix's disclaimer correspond with host and executive producer Paltrow, and what she seems certain you should do? Are you aware of what Goop, as a company, actually is and how unsubstantiated and/or downright harmful their products and treatments are? And do you trust that Paltrow, a fan of the United Arab Emirates, is selling you this fakery out of a sincere want to empower women?

Indeed, the show itself may have just done its damage. I don't remember seeing so many people be into this kind of stuff before Goop. I understand that happiness is largely mental anyhow, and that the Placebo and Barnum Effects working together to convince you you're well, so long as you perform the right ritual, is sometimes functionally the same thing as being well. It's just that some things objectively aren't medicine, no matter how persuaded you feel by a glittery, brightly colored Netflix show. This is wrong.

If you fall for routines reducible to "Being positive about everything that happens in life means that everything in life seems positive (and if you notice this, you'll know my $200 crystals are worth buying for added energy)" or "This horoscope said that you will breathe oxygen today, ergo it is proven that distant plasma balls tangibly affect the lives and personalities of people on this particular Mutter Spine spheroid", that makes you a rube. It doesn't mean you're a Woman.

Yeah just the kind of crap you would expect from Hollywood new age stars who are totally out of touch with Reality so yeah it will probably be popular A show for people who have their head stuck up their own asshole as well

Dangerous. Spreads false information that is dangerous to people's health.

It is a show about Paltrow's store, and why you should buy her unproven products.

You've got to be kidding us!?

This is Psuedo science at it's worst. The information and "facts" provide are dangerous and very likely to land many women who believe this garbage in the hospital. I can't believe this was greenlit. How irresponsible. Also Goop is actually the intellectual property of the Wayans brothers stolen by this white woman.

This is plain and simple garbage, don't waste your time with it unless you want to see how insane some people are.

The stupid in this one is strong. So strong in fact that with a little tinkering the show could be weaponized, targeted at the heads of enemies to vaporize their brains and leave them gibbering morons. What was Netflix thinking? Much more garbage like this and its reputation will be in the toilet.

Gwenyth Paltrow and her brand "Goop" is promoting pseudoscience. Her products and this show in particular is contributing to the dumbing-down of society. Anti-vaxers rejoice. Idiocracy, here we come.

This show is insulting to the intelligence of the viewers. If it were not bad enough Paltrow rips people off with her quack items, now netflix takes our subscriber money to pay her to put up basically an infomercial? WTH. Seriously we need to start a subscriber boycott. These products also are not just ripping people off but are potentially dangerous. Do we really want to be supporting such a thing with our subscriber money?

Im serious about starting a boycott we just need to find out the best way to do it.

And I'm probably even in the target audience. Sort of (I mean, WHO truly is?). Amazing that she said (paraphrasing), "I had to do something better than just making out with Matt Damon." Is that how she sums up her entire movie career (more like making out with Michael Douglas, her father's bestie...ewww)? I can't get that out of my head (nor the vapid, old news sex one). I mean, for someone who is claiming to be for women's empowerment so much. GMAB! Or maybe that says it all about her movie career and why she has been reduced to a crank shopping network worse than any product on any shopping network. Maybe because she hasn't been able to get a decent acting job in literally, decades.

If it sounds like I'm being hard on her...I AM. And all due to this insipid, vapid, dumbed down show. What an insult to old hippies, researchers, and serious psychonauts everywhere for her to do a segment on psychedelics, which are not a silly product for rich women to buy at Neiman's for the weekend. WTF. Nor something to be experienced during a TV show. There is no emoji to even express my feelings on this.

Paltrow was born into Hollywood royalty so has likely never seen a day of real life in her life and we are supposed to take life advice from HER? No way, no how. Pfffft, Netflix! You cancel the OA, et all, but give a budget and greenlight to this nonsense?

I feel like a lot of these people who left comments didn't even watch it. It was so interesting and just because the tv tells you to do something, doesn't mean you need to do it. Honestly, could watch this for days. Bring in season 2!!!!

I feel like one person wrote ALL these 1 Star reviews. I loved this series. No it's not in depth it's obviously not meant to be. I love Wim Hof, I definitely believe in energy healing. I had fun binging this series. I definitely recommend this for those looking for alternative healing and modalities to find your authentic self.

At times Netflix strategy for original content production is confusing. On one hand, they cancel good series such as OA after few seasons. On the other hand, the greenlit very bad series such as this and the I-Land. The bad shows are mostly waste of time. However, this particular show that emphasizes pseudoscience is dangerous and should be avoided.

Didn't realise I was paying for infomercials on pseudoscientific scams from millionaire quacks. Not paying a dime to Netflix anymore after this garbage. Can't believe what they're thinking - they should pull this off immediately if they have any dignity. I hope people will vote with their wallet and punish Netflix for spreading this.

I'm all about natural and alternative remedies. I do believe in psychedelics as therapeutic (and fun) but that episode didn't even come close to explaining anything, and the other episodes I tried to watch were ridiculous and boring. I'm ashamed that my Netflix history now has this on the list.

Netflix has always tried to pander to an audience of middle aged women, and as a company, it clearly thinks they're gullible and dumb enough to be manipulated.

This is on other shows, here Netflix is blatantly like "Here, our main demographic, we made this for you. Go forth and waste your life watching this extremely, hilariously stupid show and spend money on its fake products and you too can be a husk of a woman like whatever-her-name-is."

Is it true? Are you really an audience as stupid as Netflix thinks you are? Are you giving this show views, and Netflix your money, thus encouraging its continuation?

I watched the first episode not because I was interested in the content, but because I assumed if would be a good laugh. Instead I came away disgusted that Netflix is using my subscription fees to push an extended infomercial for a celebrity's pseudoscientific vanity project. Save yourself from feelings of disgust, regret and anger about this garbage; watch something on another streaming service.

I have no words to describe what a load of codswallop this is.

Netflix has reached a new low level.

"Provacative" in the same way as taking a crap on the pavement is provacative.

She "leads with curiosity" whilst avoiding established science.

If she was truly curious she would have a working knowledge of biology and then build on that with experimentation.

This is a corporate PR campaign for a soulless brand selling snake oil to wealthy young women

How have we ended up with antivaxxers? How have we ended up with climate change deniers? How have we ended up with so much political polarization that many modern governments can barely function? It's media and pseudoscience like this that leads the way. It's talking heads saying "don't listen to the professionals in their field or their consensus, listen to me" who feed us information from a false position of authority that does the damage. And these "authorities" do so by saying (or pretending) they have some level of scientific or objective data to back them up, when in reality they usually don't even understand the science they claim supports their conclusions.

No, I'm not saying that The Goop Lab or Goop or Gwyneth Paltrow are solely responsible for all the world's woes, that would be silly. But the continual legitimization and propagation of both pseudoscience (i.e. not science) and the misrepresentation of real science has slowly (but very surely) chipped away at our collective ability to think critically and judge based on facts and quantitative/qualitative analysis instead of feeling. It's not even the average person's fault, honestly. There's just so much NOISE thrown at everyone that it can be incredibly difficult to sift through everything to find the underlying (and unadulterated) facts.

This is compounded by the (appropriate) nature of (most) scientists to be very careful with their words and analysis in order to remain open to the idea that they could be wrong and to be objective as possible (this is where many people conflate "theory" with "the jury is still out"), which can be frustrating to those who demand simple answers to complex questions. But when you have a supposed "expert" say from an unearned platform of legitimacy that "there's scientific research to support energy healing," the people who want energy healing to exist will say "I knew it!", even though there's no evidence of it outside of a general placebo effect. It doesn't matter if it's true or not. It feels true to the person who wants it to be true, and they will now go on believing and telling everyone that there is at least some scientific evidence for something when there is none.

However, what is particularly insidious about The Goop Lab, aside from the attempts to claim scientific legitimacy for ideas that have none, is that they actually do pepper in ideas that have some merit (though the "scientific experiments" they perform are about as scientific as a seance). For instance, there is a real argument to be made and much more research to be done concerning the use of hallucinogens for medicinal purposes, but that episode and those like it are used to lure the viewer in before they then attempt to legitimize things like PSYCHICS, a "field" of study that has been debunked over and over and over again. That is irresponsible, dangerous, and frankly, immoral.

Some might ask "well, what's the harm in someone believing in psychics or energy healing, even if it's just for the placebo effect" The first answer is obvious: Charlatans and con artists can and do use pseudoscience to take advantage of the vulnerable, sometimes with disastrous (and/or lethal) consequences. The other consequence is more subtle, though arguably more dangerous. When a person is made to believe that there is empirical evidence for something when there is none, especially when it's something they really want to believe and is entangled with their personal identity, they may begin to distrust those experts who say otherwise. It becomes easier to say "it doesn't matter that there's a consensus on this issue, they've been wrong before" for any bit of information that is inconvenient, scary, or makes us question our identify. For obvious reasons, I'd say this is an exceptionally dangerous mindset.

Goop may not be wholly responsible for the slow decay of objective reality we have today, but it certainly contributes greatly to it. Gweneth Paltrow, Goop, and Netflix should be ashamed of themselves, and I'm sure they'll cry themselves to sleep on their piles of money.

Anyone here giving this show more than one star is either a shill or one of the gullible, ignorant idiots that the Goop business model preys upon to make their millions.

The show is a highlights reel of what makes the business not only a sham but a dangerous one at that.

Gwyneth Paltrow is an abomination, a stain on this Earth and I just hope to whatever god there may be up there that she loses everything to law suit or ten.

I am stunned to see the reviews on this page. This serie is just what we need in this world people to see that they and their bodies are powerful and they need less of the pharmaceuticals, they have the psychical power to control their bodies and mind over matter. I celebrated the fact that a female orgasm is shown as it should be without attachment of pornography. However clearly the world isn't enough for the equality yet. This is revolutionary serie everyone should watch. thank you Gwyneth revolutionising the world!

I watched a couple of episodes of this series and I am surprised that so many people were offended by the thematology. This is not science, it doesn't present it as it is. It provides an alternative view of some serious issues that we all confront in our every day lives. This is informative and fun but not lifechanging. Chill out.

Do not believe anything you hear in this series. It is full of scam. Do not buy these ideas and items, you can save money that you can spend on real health improvements. Misleading fake new campaign for money. 'Paltrow said, "when I find something I think works, I like to share it with people." Apparently that's with very little concern for those with whom she is sharing. Your health deserves better.

One week, Paltrow is claiming she's found the perfect diet. The next week, she says she needs to detox to undo damage from whatever she's been throwing into her body. ...