In Max’s new travel series Thirst with shay mitchell, the Canadian actress and businesswoman takes viewers on a journey around the world to explore beautiful landscapes and taste local drinks. As she explains, one of her passions in life is sharing a toast, so she travels to places like Peru, Colombia and Argentina to drink special drinks and explore the landscapes. As a television personality, Mitchell is charming and charismatic, but as a travel host, she is afraid to try more than a few things, which tends to hinder the show’s success.
THIRST WITH SHAY MITCHELL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: Shay Mitchell gets off a train and explains that she is about to head to Machu Picchu in Peru.
The essence: Shay Mitchell is best known for her acting work on shows like pretty Little Liars and Youbut as she explained in a recent instagram post The two things he likes most are “traveling and sharing a toast” and thanks to his enthusiasm for those things, Thirst born. Mitchell owns a travel accessories brand and a tequila seltzer. “So I can safely say that I love travel and a good drink,” she explains.
In the first episode, Mitchell and a local guide travel through Peru, near the base of Machu Picchu, but as she says, although most tourists who visit that area are curious about the spiritual aspects of the mountainous region, she is here only for the drinks.
While most of the program is alcohol-based, with visits to distilleries that produce locally made spirits that rely on sugar, herbs and other ingredients, Mitchell also looks for non-alcoholic beverages that are relevant to the areas he visits, including the visit. Local Incas who prepare coca mate, a sacred drink made from the same plant from which cocaine is derived. But unlike some travel show hosts, Mitchell isn’t 100% down for anything. Although she drinks coca tea, she is completely distracted by the fact that her Inca hosts live with dozens of domesticated guinea pigs, and cannot keep her rodent phobia at bay, and becomes distracted while learning about the tea ritual. Later, when she learns that the locals eat guinea pigs as a delicacy, she does half a dozen shots on camera to express her dismay that she, as a guest of honor, will have to eat the animals.
Mitchell might be channeling what we’d all feel if we were surrounded by rodents or asked to eat one, but for a show that aims to embrace and learn from other cultures, it’s frustrating to see her so uncomfortable from the start. in the show.
Mitchell may enjoy a toast, but she’s not really a drinks expert, so while many of her voiceovers explain in detail what we’re seeing, most of her comments on the drinks she consumes are just her riffs. After trying a drink called emollient, she explains: “It’s like something thick. THICC.” Elsewhere, she talks to the producers to ask them if the drink she is about to consume contains saliva. She assures that “that is another drink” called masato that she will not have to consume. It seems like a strange question, until I Googled it and discovered that masato is an ancient drink made by a human by chewing cassava and using the chewed cassava to prepare the drink. None of this was explained in the show, and it might have been helpful if they had mentioned some of it so it didn’t seem so… random?
What shows will it remind you of? There have been other travelogues focusing on the world’s traditional drinks, including The Travel Channel’s. drunk travelerand most of Anthony Bourdain’s travel shows like Unknown parts and No reservations (He definitely made food the focus of most of his visits around the world, but drinks played a role, too.)
Our opinion: As a vehicle for Shay Mitchell fans to get to know the actress and businesswoman, Thirst delivery. Mitchell has a cheerful and curious personality, seems to have a real passion for travel, and has an Instagrammable wardrobe that is a big part of the show. In the first episode, she puts on a nicer, more breathable suit after declaring that her first one was too warm for Peru’s climate, a logical decision, but one that could have been made off-camera. Instead, we see her team help her decide what shoes to wear and shield her from view while she changes in a van. While TV hosts need to inject their shows with their own unique personalities, choices like these make the show feel less about the location and more about the person showing it to us.
However, as a travel program, Thirst is less successful. While we know some beautiful sights and unique drinks, Mitchell is a cautious traveler in some ways. She admits that, while she drinks, she is not an adventurous eater and she doesn’t seem excited about trying weird things. And she is also terrified by many of the aspects of her adventure, mainly those that have to do with animals. She spends most of the first episode avoiding the guinea pigs that many of her guests keep in her house (admittedly, she reluctantly takes a bite when they offer it to her at a special meal in honor of her) and abandons part of it. she goes through a horseback riding segment in Argentina because she doesn’t like horses. While her fears are valid, as part of a travel program, my wish would have been to schedule activities that she might be more excited about, since these fairly regular phenomena don’t seem to serve her mission of embracing local cultures.
Not all travel programs have the mission of educating us with deep cultural immersions: Conan O’Brien must go and Eugene Levy The reluctant traveler They are examples of people just having fun and doing their thing in a new place. But Thirst It seems to want to go a little deeper than that, and that’s where it struggles, because the topic is simply overshadowed by Mitchell herself.
While Mitchell certainly shows admiration and respect for the places he visits, much of the show seems improvised and Mitchell seems unpolished. The show works best when Mitchell talks to locals and really learns about local customs, like when he meets a winemaker who makes his drinks from a potato-like tuber, or when he has drinks with former Miss Peru, Natalie Vertiz. . but in the end, he feels like Mitchell went out and filmed a show without doing a ton of prep work to carefully process and react to what he’s learning.
Parting Shot: “I came here secretly looking for instant spirituality, but what I learned was that you can’t change the life of what is sacred, you have to surrender to it,” Mitchell says of a montage of the places he visited in Peru. He then reveals where she is taking her next episode, Cartagena, Colombia.
Performance worth seeing: This is Mitchell’s show, and although he visits with a rotating cast of locals, performers and other personalities, everything has his mark.
Memorable dialogue: “This is so beautiful, where is my phone?” Mitchell says when served a ceviche cocktail at a bar in Cusco, Peru. The show’s format leans heavily on influencer culture: the social media of each guest who appears on the show is shown, and Mitchell’s vibe, aesthetic, and commentary feel more influenced by the networks. social than anything else, so of course you would need a photo to show what you are eating.
Our call: Shay Mitchell has more than 32 million followers on Instagram; If you’re one of them and you’re a fan of her personality, you’ll probably want to PASS IT ON. If you’re not a fan, I think you can safely pass.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show. Chain reaction.
