As a game show fan, it can’t be overstated how excited I was by the announcement of The Floor. Even without any mechanics that could be considered revolutionary, it managed to feel like what the formula needed. It was the first significant game show in years to embrace a larger playing field while also acknowledging that one of the greatest aspects of TV as a form is serialization. Even if I could argue that shows akin to Jeopardy! or The Weakest Link are, on average, more fulfilling, The Floor was a show that rewarded viewer patience with non-stop suspense with outcomes that could change in a matter of literal seconds. Add in Rob Lowe with arguably his finest work since transitioning to hosting duties, and you have something that would remain evergreen so long as the talent pool sustained.
It was a formula that Fox sought to capitalize on, and did so with enough diversity to not make similar whittling down seem like a clone. The 1% Club offered a process of elimination through ingenious puzzle-solving. Even the promise that multiple people could wind up achieving the final pot suggested a level of uncertainty.
Even then, it wasn’t The Floor. Anyone could jump around the show without any sense of confusion. There wasn’t a long-term investment that suggested viewers should get attached to the players. As trivial as they were, The Floor could form narratives that made defeats heartbreaking, turning strangers into heroes for the masses, and whose versatility could get them through a field of esoteric information. Even then, it’s a credit to The 1% Club and its rotating hosts for turning crowd work into compelling underdog stories.
That is where 99 To Beat enters. Whereas the other series were more focused on intellect, the latest entry feels at times like a family-friendly rebranding of Squid Game. Based on the first episode, I am led to believe that the challenges are mostly designed to make the contestants look ridiculous while they fervently run for their lives through a series of challenges. The conceit is present in the episode title: don’t finish last! In theory, this apocalyptic idea is brilliant and presents an element of chance that is even more perverse than the other members of Fox’s line-up.
I want to like 99 To Beat more. There is nothing wrong with it in theory, and yet the execution is flawed. Sure, it looks to fit the serialization idea The Floor perfected, but the early outcome does a poor job of capturing the same magic.
In fairness, it would be difficult to build a level of investment among 100 contestants whom you’ve known for a matter of minutes. Save for a handful who have been borrowed from other competition shows, everyone starts on a level playing field as a great unknown. In order to stand out, there has to be a gimmick. If forced to label noteworthy figures from the presentation, there would be a clown, a few friend and familial dynamics, and people with niche professions that end up helping them during choice scenarios. Otherwise, the framework feels designed less to care about who these people are and more to constantly remind viewers that the losers’ “journey to a million dollars” is officially over.
Mileage may vary on having hosts who need to remind the home audience about that fact. Sure, a million dollars is an appetizing prize. It’s a good enough reason to give carte blanche to every wacky idea that comes into the writing staff’s minds. And yet, those ideas only work based on how much the audience cares about the contestants. At this stage, they are archetypes without histories. They are an amorphous blur at times, being humiliated for the sake of getting a few inches closer to victory. While the stakes are relatable and the framework accessible, it’s hard to care to the level that the hosts do when observing the various names scrolling across the screen. It’s usually the final three, and all people who are neither empathetic nor present any major hallmarks to warrant a practical response. It all feels dissonant and, outside the universal experience of failure, leaves the belabored send-off feeling hollow. The sentiment is nice as everyone gathers in a circle to give an appropriate farewell, but why even care?
In fairness, there are efforts to course-correct this as the show goes on. Some contestants are emphasized for seconds-long anecdotes. However, it’s all overwhelming and doesn’t allow anything to resonate. It’s about the zippy pacing and pithy hustler speak. It’s a flashy show that gets in its own way. Maybe it’s also that, unlike The Floor, there is no real sense of progression. Everything that happens is sporadically designed and not meant to build on previously established skills. There is something fun in embracing the unknown, but it all just happens and (so far) comes across as random people doing random gimmicks for money.
Despite my larger criticism of the execution of 99 To Beat, I want to shift to the most disappointing part. If there was any room for narratives to build and had any recognition of the contestants’ larger humanity, it would actually be a halfway decent show. Given the limited space, I recognize that it would be difficult to properly recognize everyone. However, there’s nothing more than parting thoughts to really define most of these people, and, because of limited scope, it’s often reduced to polite disappointment that they couldn’t go further.
It has the essence of a great game show at its core. In a move that reminds me of The Cube, everyone is assigned to play a mix of parlor games and form strategies that will hopefully get them far. The built-in paranoia of not being good enough only becomes more nerve-racking as winners leave the playing field. The image of being the only one who failed is a powerful image, and capturing those final seconds when a potential miracle will save the day provides just the right level of suspense to keep people watching.
Because there’s only so much room to emphasize the methods to success, it’s not always engaging drama. Once the viewer notices one person achieve a challenge, they are likely to predict how every other player will. There can be variations on the pattern, but largely the tension of watching so many people do the same thing loses its appeal, especially in the latter half of the episode when ensemble numbers are done in multiple stages. There are some variations per round, but not enough to really make it feel like the audience is watching something different. Again, there are too many crazy, mixed-up ideas to really feel like levels of difficulty are increasing. It’s just a chance to mention that the writing room has some innovative minds.
This is all to say that I could see myself participating in 99 To Beat a lot more than wanting to ever watch it. The opening sequence is thrilling as balloons fall from the ceiling and hide leis that will give them a pass to the next round. The level of pandemonium is an attractive image for competition, and the randomness sets everyone up for how unkind the remainder of the show will be. The fact that the first two people ousted from the series were on the older side suggests how much physicality is secretly needed to survive.
Everything evolves from there, with games centered around defrosting a whistle, collecting pasta noodles on another one, and dumping buckets of water into containers. The first five games have plenty of novelty that makes me curious to know what other games there are. However, they all come with the reminder that nothing is being built. Every game they start back at zero and are expected to figure it out as they go. When the show requires a patience of eliminating 99 contestants, it becomes less endearing. While The Floor takes this idea to a larger extreme, its choice to show all of the cards with different topics allows audiences to anticipate what comes next. Without anyone to root for nor a chance to collect strategy and patterns, the show ceases to follow basic game show logic. Its heart always seems more fixated on reminding you that the end goal is a million dollars. It makes every facet of joy seem just that little bit more shallow.
As I’ve suggested, this feels like a knock-off Squid Game minus commentary or any cruelty. The childish games are fun in theory, but their stakes are hard to care about when a large portion of the narrative is trying to guess who will be eliminated. It’s not about the luck of being in first place or even middle of the pack. It’s about watching somebody fail, and it’s not often given any pathos worthy of suspense. No amount of the hosts panicking over players the home audience doesn’t have any relationship with makes the final results endearing. Squid Game at least knew that the ensemble needed a handful of talents to follow to see more than the despair and humiliation. 99 To Beat doesn’t have that yet.
I’m sure that it will in time, but how much more will that require sitting through tedious structures that don’t warrant any sense of drama? Again, I’m charmed by what the show wants to be, but a lot of its own execution is counterintuitive to what I want most from game shows. I want a sense of humanity to emerge. Even in an age when Fox is greenlighting several new shows that feature hundreds of contestants, 99 To Beat doesn’t do enough to stand out. For as brief as any contestant on The 1% Club winds up being featured, they still come away more recognizable. It could just be that the show allows for more intimacy and recognition that, beyond the kitschy premise, these are all people with silly dreams and aspirations. The money’s nice, yes, but given that nobody at home will be getting that money, having somebody with a kooky career adds a nice wrinkle. Until 99 To Beat finds a way to make me care about anybody and not that their journey to a million dollars is over, it will always be the inferior alternative to a more substantial line-up. Nobody has matched the lightning in a bottle that is The Floor, but few have missed quite this spectacularly.
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