Beast Games
Despite a lot of negative press, a large number of people have in fact been watching Beast Games, Mr. Beast’s big-budget reality series for Amazon Prime Video that has 1,000 players competing for $5 million, a huge reward pool the likes of which is almost never seen in this competition genre.
Now, Beast Games has finally been dethroned for the first time since launch by a new Amazon Original Series, On Call, a police drama that dropped all its episodes at once in a binge model just a few days ago, something of a rarity for Amazon. Here’s the synopsis:
“On Call is an adrenalized procedural that puts us inside the squad car and on the streets with Long Beach Police. Through training officer Traci Harmon, and rookie Alex Diaz the series examines how the complexities of the job affects the human condition. Harmon will be enlightened by a kid from the streets, while Diaz will learn that policing isn’t black and white – it requires shades of grey.”
The series does not have terribly good reviews from critics, sitting at a 50%. But it so far has much better scores among viewers, an 88%, albeit with not all that many reviews in.
Top 10
The show does not have all that many actors you’d recognize in it. The biggest “name” I can find is Lori Loughlin, Full House/college admission scandal icon. It is led by an actress from a formerly big show, however, Spencer Hastings from seven seasons of Pretty Little Liars. So perhaps she’s just not in my personal circle of known quantities. I also recognize Rich Ting from a few projects I’ve liked, from Warrior to Tulsa King.
All this said, Beast Games is far from over. It will likely reclaim the top spot soon given that On Call has been dumped out all at once, and there are still five more episodes of Beast Games to go leading up to the finale a month from now on February 13.
The difference between critical and audience reception here is wild. It has a horrible 13% from critics, some calling it everything wrong with society today. But it has an 80% from viewers, and you do not see that level of a gap every day. Despite a lot of recent internet hate, we do live in somewhat of a bubble and this is a guy with 343 million YouTube subscribers who puts up at least 150 million views on every video he releases. So no, it’s not shocking this is both doing well and highly rated. It will return to the top spot soon.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
First appeared on www.forbes.com