If you haven’t heard of Mr. Beast, I might have envied you — if it weren’t for the disaster that is “Beast Games.” Beyond the lawsuit controversies and Mr. Beast’s 9/11 (an incident on the final day of shooting in which a tower collapsed on a crew member on Sept. 11), the show is a bizarre spectacle that almost defies belief. What shocked me the most was that Amazon paid $100 million for this show.

I’m not sure where to begin, but let’s address the elephant in the room: “Beast Games” is just plain bad. Its host, Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson), and his group of friends seem disengaged and disconnected. While their personalities might work for Donaldson’s short-form YouTube content, they fall flat in a full-length television series. Instead of being entertaining, they often come across as rather irritating.

The show’s editing suffers from the same issue. Mr. Beast’s signature fast-paced style may work for YouTube, but in an hour-long format, it quickly becomes exhausting. The constant jump-cuts to contestants’ reactions become obnoxious within the first 30 minutes. The frantic editing seems designed to emphasize the show’s scale, something Mr. Beast fixates on, constantly boasting about having the biggest cash prize, the most expensive coin flip or the most contestants.

But in his obsession with making everything “the biggest,” he loses sight of making the show actually entertaining. Ironically, the focus on grand spectacle and rapid reaction shots means we never get to truly connect with the contestants, making it difficult to root for anyone or feel truly invested in the competition.

However, here’s where we get to the meat and potatoes of the show. To put it bluntly, many of the contestants we focus on are massive weirdos, but I say that with no animosity. In fact, it actually makes the show more entertaining. Each episode changes its focus to different contestants, such as the Habibi Brothers, Deano, Jeremy the Polar Bear Handler and #976, among others.

To avoid spoilers, let’s talk about Jeremy. In what is a supposedly non-religious show, the sheer number of prayer circles he leads feels out of place, especially because it’s clear he’s using religion to manipulate others. He claims that God speaks to him and guides his decisions, almost portraying himself as a Christ-like figure. At a certain point, though, he and his followers start to resemble a cult. And what is his reasoning for not picking women to join him on the helicopter? He says it’s out of respect for his wife. Yeah, Jeremy is going to get a hard pass from me.

Then there are the Habibi Brothers, who gaslight and manipulate a random woman and then laugh when she cries. The competitors are, frankly, truly insufferable, but that’s exactly what makes them so fascinating. While the show fails to build genuine connections with its contestants, it keeps us engaged with its bizarre and larger-than-life personalities, however negative they may be. The one fact I did enjoy was that by the final episode all the characters were likable, and I didn’t mind if any of them won.

Honestly, as entertaining as some of the bizarre contestants are, they don’t make up for how underwhelming the actual games are. While a few challenges, like being hunted by Navy SEALs or pulling a monster truck, are exciting, they’re overshadowed by a slew of uninspired and interesting ones — self-elimination, a knockoff bocce ball game, coin flips, trivia, the tedious train game and an excessive number of voting-based eliminations. For every engaging challenge, there are at least five dull ones dragging things down. It’s to the point where it’s clear they ran out of ideas, and after a certain point, the show feels drawn out. In fact, while watching the show to write this review, I actually fell asleep during the train game; it was that boring. Based on what I’ve seen online, I’m not alone in that sentiment.

Beyond just being tedious, many of the games force contestants into ethical dilemmas, where they have to choose between eliminating large numbers of players or taking home significant amounts of money. The show glorifies the idea of giving up massive cash prizes, but in reality, the next chance to win a million dollars is often as simple as deciding to eliminate other players. I don’t know about you but for a million dollars? I’d eliminate other players, yet, contestants are framed as vile if they would even consider it, even though it’s life-changing amounts of money.

At the end of the day, “Beast Games” is an overstuffed, chaotic mess that prioritizes spectacle over substance. While the show’s bizarre and unlikable contestants provided some unintentional entertainment, its poor pacing, uninspired games and lack of emotional depth make it more boring than exciting. In addition, Mr. Beast’s obsession with making everything “the biggest” creates a show that feels impersonal, failing to make the gripping reality TV like “Survivor” that keeps audiences invested. If you’re a fan of Mr. Beast on YouTube, you may enjoy the show for what it is, his usual formula except overblown and overdone. But for anyone looking for a genuinely compelling competition, “Beast Games” is bloated and unfocused, and despite all its money and hype, never justifies its own existence.