Beast Games: the best or worst TV?
Plus six astounding facts about Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast.
Age inappropriate
I see this post as more of a ‘public service announcement’ than an entertainment review, because I’m pretty damned sure that most of my audience won’t have the vaguest idea that anything as massively ludicrous as this, is even going on.
I am, of course, referring to Beast Games (on Amazon Prime), the brainchild of the No.1 YouTuber MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, who grew his audience by making videos of increasingly expensive and outrageous stunts.
This type of television is not made for me, MrBeast’s typical audience is under 25, but once I started watching it, I just couldn’t stop.
What led me to it?
The reason I sought it out was that Marina Hyde and Richard Osman, the unwaveringly sane and knowledgeable presenters of ‘The Rest is Entertainment’ podcast, both alluded to it… not reviewed it in full… just alluded to it…. TWICE.
That was enough to pique my curiousity and cause some early onset FOMO.
I needed no further encouragement, so I popped on over to Amazon Prime to find out what all the fuss and low level secrecy was about.
Setting the scene
First, let’s set the scene by introducing you to its creator Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, the YouTube sensation.
Estimated to be worth $500,000,000 and the first to score over 300 million YouTube subscribers.
Here are six fun facts about MrBeast…
By the way, these are in no way the most important facts about him, they were just the ones that made my Inner Monologue go “seriously?” during the research process:
In 2017, his first viral video was of himself counting from 1 to 100,000. Some bits were sped up so that it could be editing down to a mere 24 hrs.
In 2020, he released the ‘Finger on the App’ multiplayer mobile game, the premise of which was to keep your finger on the App, the last person to remove their finger from the screen wins $25,000. In the end it was a fourway tie, each of them netting $20,000 for keeping their finger on the App for over 70 hours.
MrBeast holds several Guinness World Records, including the most burgers sold in a single day and the largest game of dodgeball ever played. His challenges often involve extreme conditions, such as staying underwater for 24 hours or spinning a fidget spinner for 24 hours straight.
He is known for his extravagant giveaways, which have included giving away entire stores' worth of merchandise, donating millions to random people, and even planting millions of trees.
MrBeast is also recognised for his philanthropic work, including paying for cataract surgeries to help over 1,000 people regain their sight.
There is a ‘List of Lawsuits involving MrBeast’ wikipedia page.
Beast Games in summary
Beast Games can be summarised as Squid Games in real life… but without the killing.
The premise was simple: 1,000 contestants started, and one winner would take home the $5,000,000 cash prize.
This would all be achieved via a plethora of helicopters, monster trucks and loads of cash prizes along the way to tempt the contestants out of the game.
They would even have a chance to win their own private island worth $1.8M!
What could be more impractical?
Off on a Tangent for some private island chat…
Sir Richard Branson set-up the original viewing of Necker Island, in 1978, purely to impress his then girlfriend, who he later married.
The island was listed for sale at $6 million, the owner turned down Richard’s initial cheeky offer of $100,000, but did accept a revised offer of $180,000. Bargain!
He was contractually obliged to build a resort on the uninhabited island within four years of purchase.
That resort is able to accommodate 48 guests and now rents out for up to $140,000 per night!!!
Hence the lack of url link to book. Simply no need.
Back to Beast Games…
Needless to say, as a proper grown-up, I did waste a fair amount of time in those early stages worrying about the tax implications of such a huge cash prize, and the mountain of admin that ‘Island Ownership’ must involve, but luckily it didn’t detract too much from the action.
By episode 2 I had recruited Mr.D to join me with the line:
“You’re going to want in on this.”
After the briefest of sales pitches he joined me on the ‘Couch of Fury’ and we let the Games commence!
We chewed through the first eight episodes in about three nights.
Getting more and more incredulous at the contestants’ decision making!
Even MrBeast himself was believably stunned at some of their calls which were baffling beyond belief, and on more than one occasion had me screaming:
“It’s a game for Christ’s sake!!!!!” at the telly, which had received more than its fair share of verbal abuse by that stage and was filing its own class action lawsuit against us.
Fun fact: Christ actually gets name checked quite a lot in the first half, as one of the contestants tried, somewhat successfully, to convert his following into a cult! Unbelievable!
In fact there was a lot of behaviour that was simply unbelievable, which I think is why it ended up being so compelling.
You couldn’t guess what the players were going to do next!
Would they cave or stand fast?
Would they shit on their fellow players, or save them?
Who knew!?
The full length and breadth of humanity was represented amongst these 1,000 contestants, which made it utterly compulsive viewing.
We simply couldn’t call it.
And then just as our living room action had reached fever pitch… it stopped.
What?!
It’s not finished? No one has won yet?
Where are the other two episodes???
What we hadn’t realised, was that our slowness to this particular party had meant that, whereas we could watch the first eight episodes back-to-back on demand, we would then have as agonising wait, alongside the braying masses, for the final two to be released at weekly intervals.
“Life is so unfair!” I sulked before flouncing off.
My reaction to this would usually be to send Jeff Bezos a stern email, but on this occasion, I couldn’t be arsed.
So I waited patiently.
In conclusion
Sadly, the edge was indeed taken off those last two episodes, not helped with the gameplay in the penultimate one being amongst the worst.
That episode was so excruciatingly awful, I have sent MrBeast an invoice for my own wasted time.
However, the final was worth watching and I’m glad I did, to complete its journey. 👏
You, my friends, won’t have any such delays, you can just tuck in and chomp your way through it!
You lucky puppies!
I still haven’t decided whether this TV Series is ‘the best thing ever’ or ‘utter bile’, but I’m glad I watched it, so I can put ‘appearing on that show’ as one of the things I definitely wouldn’t do for a chance to win $5M.
Will I be watching a second Series if they make one?
You’re darned tootin’ I will, and I suggest you do the same!!!! 😃 🥳
You’re welcome,
K8x
Join in the comments below:
Had you heard of Beast Games?
If so, do you have teenage children?
Would you like to own your own private island?
Thank you for being here, please ❤️ (below) if you enjoyed this piece, it really helps others find it.
Film & TV: Kate Rates and Slates
Welcome to a new series of TV and Film reviews where the aim is to give you a good steer on several all at once, rather than my usual deep dive on just one or two.
Necker island gives me “blink twice” energy
he is amazing always and makes great content