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Published Jan 27, 2026, 9:30 AM EST
After joining Screen Rant in January 2025, Guy became a Senior Features Writer in March of the same year, and now specializes in features about classic TV shows. With several years' experience writing for and editing TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include a wide range of genres, from comedies, animated series, and crime dramas, to Westerns and political thrillers.
Netflix’s latest live event caused quite the stir over the weekend, as death-defying free climber Alex Honnold scaled the Taipei 101 tower without safety equipment, in a two-hour special titled Skyscraper Live. While Netflix’s coverage of the event is far from perfect, it’s still a spectacular piece of television that’s not to be missed.
Honnold is renowned for his terrifying free climbs up natural wonders such as the El Capitan cliff face in Yosemite National Park. But this live-TV ascent of the building formerly known as the world’s tallest was a different proposition altogether. Netflix’s NFL gameday over Christmas might have broken viewing records, but this extreme sports special was a much bolder broadcast.
The best reality TV shows on Netflix tend to be bingeable series about love, sex, and survival. This extraordinary one-off live event deserves to be added to that list, however, due to the sheer courage and near-superhuman athleticism involved in the feat it depicts. Jake Paul’s boxing matches on the platform are mind-numbing by comparison.
Alex Honnold’s record-breaking climb of Taipei 101 was everything Netflix could have asked for in an extreme sports event. It was a staggering challenge beyond even the imagination of most human beings, which was truly awesome to watch unfold. What’s more, Honnold’s ascent of the skyscraper featured a serious element of deadly risk that made it all the more compelling.
More than anything else, Skyscraper Live could be broadcast in real time, in a two-hour stream palatable enough for viewers to stay glued to their TVs throughout, sensing the scale of the achievement and the level of jeopardy in play as they watched. Should Honnold have made a fatal error, though, Netflix’s daring broadcast would have ended in disastrous fashion.
Nevertheless, Netflix had to prepare for the possibility that Honnold might die during the climb. The amount of risk involved in his feat was part of what made it such a gripping watch, after all. The streaming giant’s Vice-President for Unscripted Series Jeff Gaspin explained that there was actually a 10-second delay on the livestream just in case (via Variety).
If the worst had happened, then, the broadcast would have cut away in time for viewers to be spared the sight of Honnold potentially falling to his death. In the event, what actually went wrong with Netflix’s Skyscraper Live had nothing to do with its free-climbing daredevil. Instead, it was presenter segments around the climb that let the broadcast down.
What Alex Honnold Is Doing Next
MARK LEE/NETFLIX © 2026After being paid a six-figure sum for Skyscraper Live, Alex Honnold can take a beat before his next jawdropping feat. At the same time, he’ll likely have to go even bigger to top his latest achievement. The idea of climbing the Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest building, was discussed in Honnold’s interview with Screen Rant last October.
However, Honnold suggested that scaling this 2700 ft skyscraper might be too difficult and dangerous even for him. While we wait for his next challenge to be announced, and potentially broadcast live on Netflix, the free climber will continue recording his regular podcast Planet Visionaries, which is the best place to hear about his exploits firsthand.
English (US) ·