Have you come across this reality show that is a good mix of travel escapism, office politics and people management?

If you haven’t, a random season should be available for viewing on Netflix.

May this be the beginning of a great television relationship that can potentially span months or years (depending on how fast you plan to watch them). Multiple spin-offs in successive seasons await you!

There’s an escapism aspect to the show, sure. The basic premise of each episode across all of the series is that a group of rich and demanding guests board a boat for a lavish vacation in the most glamorous corners of the world, and we watch as the crew on board cater to their every whim, slowly driven to the brink of madness. After each charter ends, the guests leave and the crew gets so mind-boggling drunk that your own liver starts panging with empathy.

– Kevin Fallon, Senior Editor, Obsessed, The Daily Beast

Editor of The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, Kevin Fallon has provided the best nutshell of what the show is about.

My thoughts on what makes the show so popular is that the crew is so unapologetically themselves – naive, innocent, self-righteous, egotistical with the belief that the luxury yachting bubble will insulate them from their bad decisions.

It’s nostalgic to see this bunch of young, attractive people asserting themselves in ways that don’t help themselves in a workplace. Their sense of entitlement and them seeking comfort in everywhere except dealing with themselves. Classic growing pains except on the high seas.

I believe viewers are hooked on watching the crew make these seemingly pedestrian mistakes caused by a lack of self-awareness and a full dose of entitlement because it reminds them of their younger selves.

Only knowing or having experienced similar situations, can we relate and feel so strongly about these issues shown on Below Deck. It is what keeps us hooked, rooting or bashing these crew members for their behaviour.

Google any crew’s name + Below Deck + Reddit to see engaging discourse about how they should or should not have behaved on the season.

Transfer their situation from a super yacht to an office place and we might be reminded of a work situation we were involved in. A manager who micro-managed us. A work deal that wasn’t handled that well. That life. That’s us, young and learning to make sense of things.

As I watch along, I find myself not putting these crew members in clear “Good and Bad” buckets. Grey areas are aplenty at my age and nuance is everything. Cheerios. Happy Watching.