TheMomBuzz is a member of the Netflix Streamteam.
Starting off the week, I was excited to see the newly released reality competition series (a Netflix first) Ultimate Beastmaster. Taking a twist on American Ninja Warrior, it has an international flavor with six different nations that make the show a lot of fun by the fun camaraderie between the hosts.
Comparing the two reality shows, Ultimate Beastmaster takes it to a new level with 108 contestants, a longer more challenging course with the ability to gain additional points during the course to level the playing fields in different challenges. Each episode starts with 12 contestants, two from each country and are eliminated during each round by the fewest points and slowest time. The winners of each episode make it to the final round, episode ten.
The course itself is contained within the body of a giant dragon-beast structure that beings in the mouth and through the challenges have names within the structure “digestive track” “spinal ascent” and falling into the blood.
The challenge within the course is balanced and doesn’t focus on raw muscle, nimble and agile are key elements in making it through the course with each obstacle pushing the contestant be creative in making it through the course.
Judging by the contestants, Netflix was creative in broadening the audience by the nationalities. German, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico and the United States each had their own host, with Terry Crews and Charissa Thompson as our local host. I’ll add, that it was fun to watch the hosts from each country and it made me wish we didn’t have the Terry/Charissa duo since the energy of other country hosts were quite fun to watch. The screen split during the activities bring in a new perspective in watching the event, along with a fun flavor of international competition. You find yourself rooting not only for the home team, but could easily root for another competitor after watching the back story. Being a US produced show, it also doesn’t lean heavily towards American competitors, with some ending quickly in several episodes.
What’s nice about the show is that given the climate of oddities and sadness, we are all competitors and it doesn’t matter about sex, color or nationality. The entire family watched the show together with fun banter between all of us on who’s going to win.
Next to House of Cards, this is one of my favorite Netflix shows to date.
