Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Awake: The Million Dollar Game’ On Netflix, Where Sleep-Deprived Contestants Perform Physical Challenges

When was the last time you stayed awake for 24 straight hours? We haven’t done it in years, but we just remember that the times we did it we basically felt mush-brained and unable to handle even rudimentary human tasks. So imagine being on a game show where you spend 24 hours counting quarters (ugh) then having to go out in front of bright lights and cameras and do physical challenges. That’s the idea behind Netflix’s first traditional game show. Read on for more…

AWAKE: THE MILLION DOLLAR GAME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Host James Davis stands in front of a screen that shows seven contestants counting quarters. A clock in the corner of the screen approaches 24 hours.

The Gist: These seven contestants have been awake for 24 straight hours. And they haven’t been awake doing crosswords or Sudoku, but the mind-numbing task of counting quarters and keeping track of the count in their heads. The count and its accuracy will play an important role at various points in the new game show Awake: The Million Dollar Game.

Two contestants are eliminated immediately: The contestant who counted the least amount of money and the one whose estimate was the least accurate. The remaining five contestants go through physical challenges until there are only two left. The challenges in episode one: Drink as much of a massive green slushie as you can in two minutes, then thread as many needles as possible in two minutes, then throw up balloons that get popped on spikes and catch as much of the money that was in those balloons. These seem simple, but when you’ve been awake for 24 hours straight, things become much more difficult, or, in the case of the brain freeze associated with the slushie, more painful.

At the end of each round, the winning contestant automatically goes on to the next one. The rest are subject to a Buyout of increasing amounts. If they’re the first to ring in and take it, they go home with the money, whether they came in last or not. If no one takes it, the person who comes in last goes home with nothing.

When we get to the final two contestants, the person who came closest in their quarter count goes on to the bonus round. There, they have to choose whether to take home the money they counted — which can be in the tens of thousands of dollars — or see if their count is within $500 of the actual amount. If they’re right there (the results are dramatized with a “money meter”), they get the “big bank” of money all the other contestants counted, which is over six figures. Then comes the final round: keep the “big bank” or risk it for a million bucks. If their count is within $25 of the actual amount, they win the million. If it isn’t, the contestant goes home with nothing.

Our Take: Awake: The Million Dollar Game is Netflix’s first shot at a traditional game show. They’ve had other shows that were closer to reality competitions than game shows, with the lights and audience and music, where the set has those familiar blue light columns that evoke Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Awake has all of that. But there’s something weird about how it’s structured, and the weird part is not that all of the contestants have been spending the past 24 hours counting quarters.

Well, that’s not entirely true: Too much of the game depends entirely on that count, which is filmed but mostly happens off-screen. We really enjoyed watching the physical challenges, where these tired, borderline-incoherent contestants try to do things that take coordination or a high pain tolerance for even the most rested person. And the Buyout is a fun addition because it presents the contestants with the challenge of believing in themselves and sticking it out or going to a nice warm bed with some money in their pockets.

But there are only three of those rounds. The rest of the 38-minute episode is spent watching the contestants get told how much they counted backstage and how accurate they were. Even the bonus rounds completely drag down the pace of the show, as we see the contestant agonize over whether to take what he/she has so far or go for the bigger amount not once, but twice. And, since we don’t find out the final quarter count until the million-dollar round, there’s no way to play along.

Davis is OK as host; he goes for the jokes a bit too much instead of supporting the contestants, though when one of the contestants in the first episode keeps mentioning his baby son, Davis starts falling into his camp. The producers do side interviews with the contestants that pop up during the challenges, and that breaks up the monotony, especially when those contestants can’t think straight because they’re so tired. And we like that the contestants bond so closely during the 24 hours of coin counting that the competition is more friendly than fierce. We’re just not sure what the purpose is of having seven contestants when the first two are immediately eliminated and the last two don’t do a physical challenge to see who is the winner, and we don’t get why there isn’t at least one physical challenge in the bonus round.

Parting Shot: In the first episode, the winner does go for the million bucks. After that round, Davis counts down to the next episode; after all, the show is on Netflix.

Most Pilot-y Line: My usual beef with modern game shows: The blue light columns, dark set, and dramatic music. ABC’s game shows as well as the continued success of The Price Is Right and Let’s Make A Deal prove that 21st century game shows do not have to all look like Millionaire to succeed.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Awake: The Million Dollar Game has real structural problems and the idea of challenging sleep-deprived contestants isn’t new. But the physical challenges are fun to watch, and if you’re a game show nut like we are you do root for the contestant in the bonus rounds, so it’s all good.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.