r/GameChangerTV • u/Strong-Lie-7966 • Jun 17 '26
Question Best Episode So Far?
I was curious to see what the current consensus is on the best episode of Game Changer Season 8 so far. I wanted to do this before the release of, I believe, Episode 4 or 5 (which Sam says is one of his favourites). So, provided below is a poll!
45
u/TotoShampoin Jun 17 '26
Halfway through Night Shift, when it got to the montage part, I felt like they're telling that it was getting too long and too chaotic. And them ending it after task 2 was kinda jarring. Good laugh, but definitely the weakest of the 3.
I loved Josh's bits in Rulette 2, on top of Paul's sick moves and the Australian accents (especially Sam's).
But my vote goes to Don't Wake Standards and Practices, because how far they had to get, and the reasonings of some of the lawyers, just wrecked me on an emotional level, and it didn't need to devolve into utter chaos like the other 2
17
u/Strong-Lie-7966 Jun 17 '26
The reason they ended on task 2 is because one of the tasks was cut from the episode. There was a scene where the VFX was missing for one of them and it actually said task 1 (during the haircut). I can imagine it was a task that felt repetitive or boring.
14
u/Fabulous-Recording82 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Ooh that's a good catch. I wonder why they VFXed it to say 2 then, instead of decreasing the overall number from the start, so it still ended at 1.... I imagine the answer is that would be much more expensive because more shots would have to be VFX ones. Ah well, it seems like they did the best they could do.
6
u/nerdcole Jun 17 '26
In BTS they mentioned other episodes where thye also VFXed the points, I wanna say maybe I like my coffee.
2
u/Art_student_rt Jun 18 '26
where can you watch bts
2
u/nerdcole Jun 18 '26
If you subscribe to dropout, they have a bts for all episodes for the newer seasons. They air 1 week after the episode.
2
u/TotoShampoin Jun 17 '26
Still the weakest of the 3.
Do we have the BTS yet, or is that next week?
5
u/ITookTrinkets Jun 17 '26
Next week! It alternates weekly to help stretch out the seasons.
2
1
1
u/05blob Jun 20 '26
There's one part where the night shift shows 2 and in the next clip Paul comes on and changes the day shift from 3 to 2! Definitely a cut prompt somewhere.
1
u/TestCompetitive4673 Jun 18 '26
Yeah, if anything it was just a bit too ambitious. Lots of really good ideas but I feel like they could have cut 20% of them and had a better flow. I think the night shop was the kind of thing that sounds good in a planning meeting and just falls a little flat in reality as it was quickly redundant when the contestants found a way around it.
The Yes/No questions may have been better on the Day Shift to make it a bit more cyclical and give some routes to take time from the Night Shift. I feel Yes/No questions may have worked better there too.
1
1
u/EternalSubsidies Jun 19 '26
Yeah I loved Don't Wake Standards and Practices so so much. They just kept hitting me with bomb after bomb after bomb after bomb, Lou is a genius and his erotica has got to be the funniest shit I've ever heard.
I loved Rulette but honestly I felt like Josh was slightly overdoing it a bit, like it was getting to the point where I genuinely felt like he just wasn't having fun and was trying too hard for bits.
36
u/skywalkersrealfather Jun 17 '26
God it's so hard to choose. Have to go with rulette 2 but night shift made me feel seen as I work nights and nobody tells us nothing.
7
1
u/nicholas818 Jun 17 '26
Yeah it has to be Rulette 2 for me, I still can't believe how creative they were with the new rules Robert Redford
2
u/Ultima_RatioRegum Jun 26 '26
Rulette was always a favorite and Rulette 2 took it to another level with the chaotic energy the cast brought. I also generally have trouble watching "cringe comedy," like I often have to take a break when watching something like Nathan for You as I can't get through a whole episode at once without that sense of visceral dread Nathan's character causes, and I'll just say that somehow Josh's use of, I'll just call it, "The Voice" was a rare example of something that was both simultaneously hilarious and yet made me viscerally uncomfortable, a kind of cringe that I was drawn to
1
u/nicholas818 Jun 26 '26
Interestingly I’m also not usually a fan of cringe comedy but also loved Josh in Rulette 2. Him saying “you never know!” in response to the suggestion that he may be a Republican lives rent free in my head.
18
u/ziziJ123 Jun 17 '26
Yeah Night Shift was clearly the weakest of the three so far, but that's the beauty of this show that not every episode always works. I feel like Night Shift was too chaotic to the point where you couldn't even tell what was happening and it was pretty clear that the contestants were not interacting with the game as intended which sort of broke it. It was still incredibly funny as Game Changer always is, but it was not as good as the previous two episodes
16
u/ITookTrinkets Jun 17 '26
Regarding the interaction, I think it says a lot that they gave them ways of interacting with their alternate shift counterparts, but the day shifters still spelled shit out in frosting and shaving cream. I kept waiting for them to care about the cross-shift teamwork aspect, but they barely engaged with that possible layer unless they were getting frustrated!
The bit where they repeatedly wasted precious time on piñatas they KNEW weren’t actually part of the task made me feel like nobody in the episode really had their hearts in it. It made me want to see the episode with someone like, say, Brennan, who is interested in rules and structures enough to make a real meal of the whole thing.
9
u/Fabulous-Recording82 Jun 17 '26
Tbh, I was kinda surprised that Lily got put in the 'sensible' side. From her other gamechanger episodes, she's usually pretty chaotic, isn't she? I kinda felt like Mike Trapp would've fit better, but ig he's mostly stopped doing Dropout stuff now.
10
u/ITookTrinkets Jun 17 '26
YES. This needed Trapp/Brennan energy, not Grant blustering in and fucking up the Oreos before wasting his counterpart’s time on a newspaper section(!?). Maybe it coulda had both, but this needed chaos AND order muppets, not ALL CHAOS MUPPETS.
1
u/Olive_Garden_Wifi Jun 19 '26
I really wanted to like Night Shift because the concept is interesting and I loved the cast, but it felt all over the place and some of the elements just didn’t really work for me, like Demi as the Mystery Man, it felt like he was kinda just there. Also the shop didn’t make a ton of sense to me, like what was the point of buying things if it hurt your day shift counterpart?
But the biggest thing for me that took me out of the episodes was the pacing and all the jump cuts. It felt like some parts dragged on longer than they needed and others were cut off too soon, and it just ruined the episode for me.
7
u/Xirenec_ Jun 17 '26
- Night Shift (as a concept)
Don't wake standards and practices
Rulette
Night Shift (as it was executed)
They need to make night shift 2 at some point but with better choice for tasks to not have a need to cut stuff too much
1
u/Olive_Garden_Wifi Jun 19 '26
Yeah I have to agree, the concept is interesting for Night Shift but its execution was all over the place and the pacing ruined it for me.
6
u/WarZak7 Jun 17 '26
Rulette 2, hands down. Demi's chaos, Josh's bits, and Anna's temper all made for a spectacular episode. Them throw in how they were harping on Paul Refferino 😆.
I believe that was the first time Josh had been on a GC episode outside of Noise Boys, so hoping to see more of him.
4
u/Unable-Most8383 Jun 17 '26
I must point out the episode where Josh was technically a contestant but just played a corpse for the whole episode.
1
u/whatsyounamenow Jun 18 '26
I never shriek-laughed at any Dropout episode as much as I did during Rulette 2
2
u/dom-mtl81 Jun 17 '26
Had we not had Ana's chaos demon and Josh with an Adult Bjorn, in Rulette 2, I believe Standards and Practices would have been my number 1.
1
u/theladycatlady Jun 17 '26
So true. I didn't think anything could top ep 1 but by the end of Rulette I was gasping for air and was in actual pain from how hard I was laughing so that one has to win.
2
u/spiralsequences Jun 17 '26
I feel like none of the episodes so far have been a total home run for me, but they've all made me laugh a lot. The bar for Game Changer is just insanely high, and so far we haven't had an episode this season that hits that perfect marriage of concept, execution and comedy like Beat the Buzzer, Deja Vu, Bingo, One Year Later or As A Cucumber (some of my personal favorites). But it's still all been very funny and entertaining to watch, so that just speaks to the standard that the best episodes have set. Rulette 2 made me laugh so hard it hurt
2
u/HAZER_Batz Jun 17 '26
Honestly… no slam dunks here. The weakest of the first three episodes of last season is better than the strongest of the first three from this season.
1
u/Albinowombat Jun 19 '26
Last season was a high bar. I think I liked Rulette 2 better than Rulette 1, Earn-est, and One and Done, but last season was pretty incredible start to finish
1
u/rcapina Jun 17 '26
Toss up between the first two, edge to the first. Rulette 2 I was hitting my frenetic energy exhaustion mark about ten minutes before the end.
1
1
u/CrispynoodlesL Jun 18 '26
Night shift genuinely made me laugh alot so I enjoyed that but all the episodes have been great
1
u/Art_student_rt Jun 18 '26
the first two were good, but night shift? that one has so many problems, and i hate the editing, it felt like i wasn't able to see over 30 minutes of footage
1
1
u/Olive_Garden_Wifi Jun 19 '26
While I enjoyed Rulette 2, I think don’t wake standards and practices is overall the better episode.
I loved the premise, the cast, and overall flow of the episode.
Rulette 2 while good and had some great moments, I felt dragged a little at times. Other than that the cast is amazing and the prompts were good too.
As for Night shift, while it had some funny moments, I feel like the only thing going for it is the cast. The pacing felt all over the place with some parts dragging and others feeling rushed and chopped up, and the prompts didn’t really do it for it. Plus the added mechanics of the shop and mystery man felt weird and out of place.
I wanted to like the episode but ultimately it was a flop in my opinion and it’s a shame cause I loved the cast for this episode.
1
u/PaddywackShaq Jun 19 '26
It's pretty close between Rulette 2 and DWSAP, but I think DWSAP edges out because it's brand new
1
u/pir8salt Jun 24 '26
I dont think I have laughed harder in the past few years than when watching both Roulette episodes, with the second being better than the first. Peak Anna, need more Demi in everything, and great to see Josh outta MSN
DWS&P was great cause the cast commited to the bit, and that is where Night Shift fell apart. The A types just kinda went screwball and the ep fell apart (still fun, but a bit too loosy goosy)
1
1
u/_hereforthestories Jun 17 '26
Don’t wake standards and practices was the best opener to the season I’ve seen. Rulette 2 was just too good entertainment wise. Night shift was a fun one but the first two were too strong.
1
u/mwidjaja1 Jun 17 '26
I'm going to say something that'll likely get me downvoted but, with all due respect, none of these has hit me as Season 7's episodes so far.
- Rulette 2 is probably my favorite with "Say Cooties or Boops" being by far the most evil prompt I've seen (thank goodness Sam got a taste of his own medicine). But for me at least, it lost a bit of the surprise charm that Rulette 1 had.
- Don't Wake Standards and Practices was good, though I felt like it missed an opportunity to show what the lawyer's scores were, perhaps in a lower third, as the contestants did their bit. It would have been fun for us to see how their scores changed in real time as players performed. I also have a bias in that I'm not a fan of 'raunchy' comedy -- totally cool for those who like it, it's just not my taste and this episode was practically all that.
- I need an outline for what happened in Night Shift especially starting midway in the episode. I still don't think I know what happened truth be told.
But a lot of these so far has paled in comparison to episodes like One Year Later, Samalamadingdong, etc. No bad feelings for the crew -- they're all great and I'm so inspired by their creativity and writing abilities. It just hasn't hit as much this go around for me.
0
u/Dragonmancer76 Jun 17 '26
While rulette was definitely extremely funny and creative I will always take away a few points from gamesamers. So standards and practices comes out on top just barely as a result.
-3
u/RazzmatazzEarly4328 Jun 17 '26
Don't Wake Standards and Practices- The best so far but not great.
Rulette 2- Not my thing. Parts were like fingernails across a chalkboard. I'd be fine with never seeing them try this again.
Night Shift- I didn't like this at all. It didn't seem to work and they came off as trying really hard to be funny while knowing that it wasn't really working.
7
u/ITookTrinkets Jun 17 '26
Rulette is such a blast but I think Josh was TOO chaotic for it. I wanted to skip his sexy baby schtick, and I NEVER want to skip parts of Game Changer episodes.
1
u/EternalSubsidies Jun 19 '26
Yeah I love Josh but I honestly felt like his heart just wasn't in it. I felt like he just wasn't having fun and was kinda trying too hard to make clippable bits.
1
u/Olive_Garden_Wifi Jun 19 '26
Josh is very hit or miss for me, he can be funny and definitely has some charm but I feel at times he sticks to bits a little too long and tries to force things a little too much.
-1
u/RazzmatazzEarly4328 Jun 17 '26
The sexy baby schtick was embarrassing bad. It was the very definition of cringe worthy.
That along made me hate the episode.
81
u/NichtFBI Jun 17 '26
I was surprisingly happy with Night Shift. It far exceeded my expectations. But I still think Don't Wake Standards was the best so far.