[Editor’s note: I think the last reality show I watched and really enjoyed was Barbeque Showdown on Netflix. Generally, however, I’m watching scripted fare, especially comedies. So when contributing reviewer Maurice Tougas suggested his son Scott had a fun take on the Prime Video series Beast Games, I used my best Price is Right announcer voice and said, “Come on down!” Having just watched the trailer, the series does seem perfect for these desperate, “greed is good” times. Over to you Scott and let the games begin.]
I should not enjoy Amazon’s Beast Games.
It’s hosted by a YouTuber. Most of the contestants are emotionally unstable young people, and those that aren’t are old people who desire to be emotionally unstable young people. It’s edited at a breakneck pace, aimed at the TikTok generation. Not only am I not cheering for anyone on the show, I find myself cheering against nearly everyone.
And yet, I love Beast Games.
But before I delve in, let’s take a step back.
Beast Games is hosted by a young, homely kid named Jimmy Donaldson, who goes by the monkier “Mr. Beast.” If you don’t know who he is, you don’t have a teenage son or daughter (granted, I suspect his audience skews male, but that’s irrelevant). Mr. Beast is one of YouTube’s most successful content creators. He has 339 million subscribers, with most of his videos getting 200-300 million views, and some up to over 650 million.
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What are these videos? They’re one part game show, one part social experiment… with many coming down to a simple question: “would you do X for $X?”
Riding on the waves of his financial success, Mr. Beast is able to ask that question again, and again, and again. How long would you stay in a circle drawn on the ground … if I paid you $500,000? How about a $100,000 game of tag? He throws in a few videos about doing good things (providing 1,000 poor people with eye surgery to cure their blindness, rescuing 1,000 dogs, and a number of other ideas with big round numbers), and puts himself through stupid – albeit entertaining – challenges (eg – burying himself alive).
A few things stand out about Mr. Beast’s videos. One, of course, are the financial prizes attached (generally six or seven figures), and he tends to build giant sets and spend seemingly endless amounts of money.
The Mr. Beast video that first caught my eye remains his most popular. Following up on the success of Netflix’s Squid Games, he concocted a real-life Squid Games (Netflix, in turn, developed a real-life version afterwards). The video, watched over 683 million times, spares no expense. I encourage you to check it out.
Perhaps with this in mind, Mr. Beast made the official transition to television, created Beast Games, which serves as an even larger version of his YouTube videos.
On a personal note, I used to enjoy both game shows and reality games. I’m not sure why I gradually moved away from game shows (perhaps it’s because of shows like The Floor, where contestants are tasked with yelling out what they see on a screen, with challenging pictures like “hamburger” and “dog”), but I know why I moved away from reality shows. They, ironically, became less about reality and all too self-aware. That’s infiltrated most reality shows I used to watch, and even contestants on game shows seem a bit too rehearsed and prepared.
Beast Games doesn’t try to be real. There are cameras strapped to everything, and contestants are put through ridiculous, impossible games.
While the games are fun, many of them could be examples you’d read in a psychology textbook. Want to see a modern day Prisoner’s Dilemma with socially stunted lunatics as three of them are locked in a glass cube? Beast Games is for you.
Mr. Beast takes the premise of his videos – would you do X for $X? – and pushes it to extremes. Wildly entertaining extremes. All the while, the 1,000 contestants develop confusingly strong emotional ties.
It takes contestants who are all too self-aware, and puts their self-perceptions to the test.
Mr. Beast and his friends play the roles of hosts, and embrace their roles as lovable, average doofuses (they’re all wearing blazers and hoodies, which feels a bit on the nose).
You can enjoy this show on a number of levels. At its core, it’s just a game show. Contestants enter, some win money, most don’t. But if you take a closer look, it’s a psychological study, forcing people to make difficult decisions. And this is all done to a 2024 backdrop, where the contestants seem all too concerned about how they’re perceived.
Beast Games is not a work of art, but it doesn’t try to be. It’s somehow stupid and smart, and that’s why it works. New episodes premiere Thursdays and can be streamed anytime on Prime Video.
