Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The GOAT’ on Prime Video, A New Reality All-Star Competition Series Hosted By Daniel Tosh

How many all-star reality competition shows does the world need? From House of Villains to The Traitors, the last year has been jam-packed with shows that feature a who’s who of reality personalities from all over competing against one another. Prime Video’s The GOAT is the latest reality competition show that brings together stars from Survivor, Big Brother, RuPaul’s Drag Race and more to compete in challenges inspired by those shows. The cast is fun and diverse, but truthfully, the challenges and host Daniel Tosh all seem like a junior varsity version of what we get from similar shows.

THE GOAT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Host Daniel Tosh walks through the woods, explaining, “Over the course of human history, there have been many great achievements.Fire. The automobile. Laser hair removal. That was a good one. But nothing has impacted our lives like our greatest achievement of all, realty television. Or as I like to call it, documentaries for dumb people.” Tosh goes on to explain that while shows like The Real World, Survivor, and American Idol have made a huge impact on our culture, thus far no one has ever tried to determine who is the actual best person who has ever been on a reality show… until now.

The Gist: As Tosh jokes, “the 14 greatest reality contestants [that were available during our production window]” have assembled to compete in a series of challenges that draw inspiration from everything from Fear Factor to The Real Housewives in a satirical but still competitive way. The contestants appearing on the show include Tayshia Adams (The Bachelor franchise), Joe Amabile (The Bachelor franchise, Dancing with the Stars), Kristen Doute (Vanderpump Rules), Reza Farahan (Shahs of Sunset), CJ Franco (FBoy Island), Wendell Holland (Survivor), Teck Holmes (The Real World, The Challenge), Justin Johnson, a.k.a. Alyssa Edwards (RuPaul’s Drag Race), Paola Mayfield (90 Day Fiancé), Da’Vonne Rogers (Big Brother, The Challenge), Joey Sasso (The Circle, Perfect Match), Jason Smith (Holiday Baking Championship), Lauren Speed-Hamilton (Love Is Blind), and Jill Zarin (The Real Housewives of New York City).

It’s a lot of big personalities, which leaves room for a lot of drama, but thus far, the cast seems mostly to be stanning each other more than scheming against one another. Like The Traitors, the Bravo people (Zarin, Doute and Farahan) instantly form a clique who promise to watch out for one another, but as many of the challenges they compete in are unpredictable and rely on mental and physical strength, there’s no real advantage to that grouping yet. The first challenges the competitors engage in are inspired by survival shows, sort of. One is to see who can stand on one leg while balancing a coconut on a board the longest, and it feels more like Hands On A Hardbody than Survivor. The second is a team challenge to build a raft, use it to swim/paddle across a swimming pool, retrieve a key, and unlock a treasure chest.

To be honest, both of these challenges feel low-rent, like something you might set up in your backyard during a family reunion. Maybe I’m spoiled from the vast castle grounds of The Traitors or Survivor‘s lush location shoots, but the scale of the show just feels small for something with such a grand title. At the end of each episode, the cast votes off a loser who is exiled, out of contention for being the GOAT, although let’s face it, it’s hard to imagine any one of these people ever being considered the GOAT of reality TV.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Where E!’s House of Villains pitted some of reality TV’s most notorious stars against each other on a show hosted by a guy who once hosted a show making fun of reality shows, The GOAT pits some of reality TV’s most notorious stars against each other on a show hosted by a guy who once hosted a show making fun of the internet. Six of one, half dozen of E!’s others.

Our Take: Personally, I feel that a host’s job on a show like this is to get in and get out – they set the tone for the show without stealing focus. Daniel Tosh, however, inserts himself into too many scenes, pretending he’s a contestant, dressing in costumes, and pulling focus from the actual game for a laugh that… never comes. He’s not an inconspicuous host, but unlike, say Alan Cumming, whose wardrobe and wit leave us wanting more, Tosh’s brand of humor leaves us wanting a lot less.

Even though Tosh is annoying and the challenges are on a budget, the show has its fun moments, and the cast’s chemistry is usually fun to watch. There seems to be no real reason for the assemblage of competitors, they’re not all villains, nor are they necessarily fan favorites, and not all of them have won their shows, they’re just a cross section of pretty successful reality stars whose livelihoods seem to depend on shows like this when they’re not making club appearances. But at the very least, they’re all watchable, reminding us that their ability to strategize and/or give great one-liners are why they were cast in the first place. While we’ve certainly seen this show done before, and done better, it’s not unwatchable so much as it’s unnecessary.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After the first eliminated contestant leaves the mansion, the remaining contestants reflect on their first couple days on the show. Jill Zarin quips, “I’m the most relaxed doing this than if I was doing Housewives. This is a vacation for me.” “I didn’t realize things could be so complicated,” FBoy Island‘s CJ Franco adds. “I didn’t bring enough underwear.”

Performance Worth Watching: There are a few feisty personalities worth watching and rooting for this season, notably CJ Franco, Alyssa Edwards, and Jason Smith, star of Holiday Baking Championship (a man and show I have never heard of before today), all of whom look like underdogs but have fierce competitive sides.

Memorable Dialogue: “Only one can earn the made-up title of the GOAT of GOATs,” Tosh explains at the beginning of the show. This is just one of many deprecating jokes he makes at the expense of the show, winking at the audience and acknowledging the inherent ridiculousness of this Idiocracy we live in.

Our Call: I can’t endorse The GOAT with absolute enthusiasm or call it must-watch TV, but I also wouldn’t feel right trashing it because it’s not a bad show either, it just doesn’t have the theatrics of similar shows; by comparison, it has no real hook. It looks like the cast is having a good time and it doesn’t take itself seriously, though, which is the biggest reason I suggest you STREAM IT.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.