Game Changer Season 8 Episode Power Ranking

Today is my birthday! Hooray! More importantly, though, the first episode of Dropout's Make Some Noise Season 5 starts today, which in my mind is what indicates the start of the Game Changer off-season, where all episodes of the current season have ended, and it means they'll hopefully start working on the next season very soon!

Of course, Make Some Noise is also gonna start airing, which is an amazing show, but sadly not one I can really write full reviews for, it's simply not that type of format. I'm sure I'll really enjoy it though, it looks fantastic from the trailer, and there's some episodes I particularly like I might share them as part of my weeklies!

However, as a final treat for this amazing season of Game Changer, I wanted to do a quick power ranking of all ten episodes, from my least favourite (merely okay) to my most favourite (some of the best things I watched this whole year, and my favourite episodes of all time). I've written full reviews of most of them before so they might be a bit brief, but I didn't for the first two episodes, so I'll go into a bit more detail for those two in particular. For each episode I'll leave the links to them as well as their resepective reviews (when they exist).

Without further ado, here's the list!

10. I Spy

I think I might've been a tad bit too harsh to this episode when it first dropped, as a bit more time has passed I've definitely seen some of the value of it being a much chiller episode, but my opinion hasn't changed much aside from that. I still think I Spy is the weakest episode of the season, some of it works very well for me, especially the tableaus themselves and some of the reveals, but a lot of it doesn't, like most of the recurring gags, the scoring system, and especially the fact that the answers and roles were revealed to us for almost every round.

It's a shame, since I do think the tableaus are the best art thing to come from the entire season, and I adore the cast, but I just didn't have as much fun with it compared to all the other episodes. For the show as a whole, though, it's still quite decent.

9. Kangaroo Court

As the season has gone on Kangaroo Court has become less and less notable for me, though that's not to say it's bad, I still find it quite fun. I adore the cast, both the three contestants and the seven jurors, and in general I really like the episodes that are practically a bunch of minigames with a unique win condition! Plus it still has quite a few memorable moments, like Brennan's immediate hesitation towards the first challenge, Aabria with the legos, and Tao eating everything.

In the end, though, this just ends up being one of the weaker episodes by default simply due to how good the rest of the season is. I feel like if this were in most of the previous seasons this would be near the top, but I just feel it's weaker than almost all the others of this season.

8. Don't Wake Standards & Practices

This was the season premiere, and because of that it's also the first of two episodes I didn't write a full review on. Don't Wake Standards & Practices sees Jeremy Culhane, Lou Wilson, and Ally Beardsley playing essentially a big version of the Don't Wake Daddy board game, but they have to be as legally liable as possible to move, while not being too liable that they get sent back to the start, as decided by three lawyers (including LegalEagle). A lot of the prompts throughout episodes include possible copyright infringement, breaking union rules, a few health and safety issues, and the constant breaking of pre-watershed/safe harbor regulations.

I thought this was the perfect episode to start the season on, as it perfectly showed the chaos we could expect from it. That being said, I do feel like a lot of the things that made it so funny when first viewing aren't as effective anymore, and that's simply due to the fact that a lot of it came from the shock of not expecting it, but by definition that isn't as effective after the first time.

The cast of the episode is still great, probably the three best contestants they could've picked; the lawyers also had their great moments, Phil is still hilarious and my favourite part of the episode, and we even got a double cameo from previous Game Changer guests! It's still a good episode, but again, I do feel like it just isn't as strong upon rewatch, and the game itself isn't the strongest, so it's a bit low amongst the series for me. It's still probably my second favourite premiere episode of any season, only beaten by One Year Later, of course.

7. Last Talent Standing

From the season premiere, to the season finale! Last Talent Standing is the most recent episode, and thus probably the one I have the least to add to, my thoughts are pretty much unchanged from my review of it last week. It was the perfect finale for the season, the perfect showcase of 23 incredible castmembers, and it featured three amazing judges that did their roles perfectly.

I really struggled with choosing whether this episode was better than the next one, but ultimately I decided to put this below, simply since I would rather rewatch the next episode than this one. Might just be a scope thing, but ultimately I do feel like they are very close in quality.

I do think that from this episode on, every episode would probably rank in my top third of episodes of the whole show! Don't quote me on that, I haven't made an official list of it, but if I had to guess where that point is, it's here. And yes, we're still in 7th place, seriously, this season was so good.

6. Earwigs

Even though I prefer Season 7's Drinking Game as an episode, I do think Earwigs is the best designed social deduction game of the whole show so far, and an especially good example of one that is still fun to watch! It shows part of the social deduction element to have someone to root for each round, but it also has a second element that is hidden to keep us guessing. I absolutely loved the idea of the episode, and I think they did a great job with the minigames, they feel absolutely perfect for what the game is!

The game itself is great, the cast are fantastic, and it definitely has the most fun theme of any episode, I'd argue of the entire show so far. Like I said earlier, I did struggle between this and Last Talent Standing, and I decided to go with this one for now, but I could see my mind flipping them someday.

5. What's The Catch

What's The Catch is probably the episode that intrigued me from the trailers the second most, behind the finale, and it absolutely delivered. The game itself was a relatively simple game of prizes and punishments, but the small bits of theming and especially the contestants made it work perfectly for me. It's probably the simplest game of the entire season, but it resulted in some of the best moments of the whole show from it, like Jacob in Universal Studios, Jay Behpoornia's acting reel, and everything that happened in Topeka, Kansas.

I already thought quite highly of the last two episodes, but honestly this episode and all the ones after it are probably in my Top 10 favourite episodes ever. Again, don't quote me on that, I haven't made a proper ranking of that yet, but I can easily see that being the case. Also similar to the last two, though, I seriously struggled deciding whether this belonged in this spot or if the following did instead.

4. Night Shift

When this episode first came out I said it was probably my favourite episode ever, and although I don't agree with that exactly anymore — it is fourth on this list, after all — it's still very much up there for me! I still think Night Shift is excellent, it's a game with an incredible mechanic, I'd argue it has quite underrated game design, it has two perfect sets of cast members, plus some incredible cameos, and it has a very good theme and set decoration!

Like I just said in the previous section, I seriously struggled with choosing if I prefer this episode or What's The Catch. I do think What's The Catch is slightly funnier, but I think the game itself is much stronger here, and given what the show is about I think I end up preferring Night Shift between the two. Still though, they're both incredible and most-definitely in my Top 10 episodes ever, and I give this one a slight edge.

3. Roulette 2

To be frank, I seriously think these last three episodes might be my three favourite episodes of all time. I am very certain on the fact that Deja Vu was my favourite episode of the show before Season 8, and the original Roulette was very close to that for me, but it just so happens that the second one is even better, so I think this is the episode that finally dethroned Deja Vu for me as my favourite episode ever — and of course it was then dethroned twice, but more on that in a bit.

Roulette 2 was the second episode of the season, and so the other one I didn't write a full review on! It was the only true Game Samer of the season, and it featured Josh Ruben, Anna Garcia (who was in the original), and Demi Adejuyigbe. The game was essentially the same as the first one, they spun the massive wheel, got rules placed upon them that they had to follow, encountered modifiers to the rules and prompts they had to do, up until the wheel decided the game ended. Unlike the first time, though, Sam also had to follow the rules from the very start, contestants were also able to give rules to Paul Refereeno, and there was a "golden rule" that all contestants had to follow that could also be switched and/or modified.

To me this was easily the most chaotic episode of the entire season, there were multiple points where everyone was just accusing everyone else of breaking rules, and it ended up being a hilariously tough game.

The original Roulette was already easily my favourite Season 7 episode, purely from it having an amazing cast and a simple premise that could easily be built on. This sequel kept the simple base game but added a few more interesting elements that helped keep it fresh, and it had an even more chaotic cast (in my opinion), so to me it's strictly better than the first one, and easily in my Top 3 episodes of the season — and probably the entire show.

2. Noise Some Makes

All the Make Some Noise episodes are easily amongst my favourite episodes of their respective seasons, and with this double spin-off the trend seems to continue! Noise Some Makes to me is the perfect evolution of what you could do after the original Make Some Noise, simply making it like a game of Telephone! I've previously mentioned how I really like episodes where you can somewhat play along with the game, like most of the social deduction ones, and this is easily the episode that applies to the most of the season. If there's one thing I like more than watching people act out creative prompts, it's having to guess what those creative prompts are!

The game itself was fantastic, there were so many memorable moments amongst all four groups, all the teams had amazing chemistry, and I absolutely loved the homages to the standard Make Some Noise in the graphics, set, and even editing. Easily one of my favourite things Dropout has ever done, and a perfect combination of my two favourite shows of thiers… and yet, there's an episode I think is even better.

1. Count The Rice

As soon as I watched it I knew this would be my favourite episode ever, and even as the season has gone on I still agree with that. Count The Rice is easily my favourite of the season, and that's an incredible feat for being in a season filled with fantastic episodes. It's an incredible game that is even a bit of a puzzle (my favourite type of game), the theming and gags are incredible, it's quite rewatchable, it has a perfect set of seven contestants, and to me it strikes the perfect balance between the game and comedy aspects of the show. It is seriously hard for me to describe what I love about this episode, since it's pretty much all of it, it is quite literally the perfect episode to me.

The only minor caveat (which doesn't really count) is that it makes me a bit sad that we haven't seen Catherine McCafferty in more Dropout shows, since I absolutely adore her. Come on, please bring her back for Season 9!!

And that's it! This is easily my longest post ever, by a lot, see it as a birthday treat from me! … wait, why am I the one giving out the treat?

But on a real note, I really loved this season of Game Changer. I wrote in my last review that I wasn't fully certain on if I preferred this or Season 7, but after writing about all of it in so much detail, I am now very sure that this is my favourite season of the whole show so far. Yes, not all episodes were my favourites, but even the "worst" ones were still alright, just not as strong, but the better episodes — like I said — are now my favourite episodes of all time. In general, I'm very glad that they seemed to experiment in this season a lot more than any others, and I give Dropout massive kudos for that.

I hope you guys enjoyed the season as much as I did, and I wish Dropout good luck with making Season 9!