Critics claim that Mr. Beast has not just ruined YouTube; he’s ruined his own game show. Despite a less-than-stellar 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, “Beast Games,“ his reality TV competition show featured on Amazon Prime, is admittedly not as bad a watch as critics claim.

Now, who is Mr. Beast, and how did he get his own game show? In 2017, Beast rose to fame for his high-budget, high-stakes YouTube competition shows, where contestants underwent silly pranks (filling up a friend’s backyard with orbeez) to more intense challenges (living in an isolated circle for 100 days) involving extreme amounts of monetary reward.

But what Beast is perhaps most well-known for are his recent controversies. Beast has received much social media backlash for a recent YouTube video that exposed his allegedly rigged challenges. According to an exposé published by a former Mr. Beast employee, Beast edited famous YouTubers to finish higher in competitions over smaller YouTubers, used CGI to exaggerate stunts, and faked prize giveaways to his underage audience. 

These allegations have only multiplied with the debut of “Beast Games” on Amazon Prime. Currently, there is an ongoing lawsuit by “Beast Games” contestants claiming they were fed 200–300-calorie meals, weren’t properly supplied with feminine hygiene products, and that exclusion/bullying went unnoticed by staff. 

Turning to the show’s content, there are a multitude of faults that negatively impact the viewing experience for the first half of the show, despite its climactic second half. The first half makes it clear the show’s goal is not to provide an entertaining storyline, but to emphasize the record-breaking aspect of the show. Beast constantly reminds the viewers that the 5 million dollar cash prize (funded by his multiple sponsors) would be “generational wealth”, all adding to how dystopian this feels to the ordinary viewer. 

The show’s format in the first half is very similar to the viral YouTube challenge videos from which he gained his fame. His usual YouTube format, featuring non-stop shout-outs to sponsors and awkward one-liners from his friends, when added to a competition setting, makes the show much less intense. In one segment, Beast’s friends throw in a “that’s too bad” and an indifferent shrug when a contestant gets eliminated.  Yet, this was not taken lightly as a humorous aspect brought over from his YouTube videos, and only made the viewing experience more uncomfortable. 

Another reason the viewing experience was so adverse is the lack of personal connection one would make to a particular character. Unlike other reality TV shows like “Big Brother” or “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, which have clear fan favorite contestants, the sheer number of competitors made it impossible for most of the show to root for a favorite. With a limited amount of time and resources, the final edit failed to show the close-knit relationships formed between contestants or the unpredictable reasoning behind moves of betrayal. While this gave the show an unexpected and thrilling quality, the lack of audience connection to contestants made the show even more dystopian and broke the connection it could’ve had with viewers. 

While the first few episodes of the show lacked a strong storyline and the challenges became repetitive, as the show progressed and aired over the course of three months, the Beast production crew noticeably improved in storytelling, voiceovers, and intense moments. 

The ninth episode was a perfect example– a final challenge to get into the top six, 5 spots away from the final 5 million dollar cash prize. Revolving around a cunning manipulation game of bribery, this episode showcased the underdogs or weak contestants and the reasons why they were able to get into those top spots: the shots of scheming, moments of realization, and finally happiness made for an edge-of-your-seat watching experience for the viewers.

Despite its many online controversies, the general audience reception is much more positive than the hate train many online users have hopped on social media. The famous IGN review that started the criticism was based solely on the first two episodes, which admittedly needed much improvement.  

To conclude, “Beast Games” is a series that requires viewers to adopt an “Ehh, watch, and it’ll get better” mindset. On X (formerly known as Twitter), Mr. Beast has acknowledged criticism of the storyline and games of Season One, and many fans are anticipating a much higher-quality storyline and editing for Season Two.