why game changer s6e6 "déjà vu" needs a sequel
i watched this episode for the first time yesterday and i REALLY enjoyed it, might be one of my top 10 or even top 5 favorite game changer episodes ever, but i had some thoughts about it that, in true autistic fashion, needed to be shared on the internet in a much-too-long tumblr post.
tl;dr: i really, really loved the premise for this episode, but i felt like they could have done a little bit more with it, and i think another iteration of it would not only be quite fitting but also would allow the concept to be expanded.
the premise for this episode was that the players (mike trapp, ify nwadiwe, siobhan thompson) were trapped (mike trapped 😜) in a timeloop, and the events of the episode would repeat over and over again. i really enjoyed a lot of the things that they did with this premise! there were things that the players would need to get better at over time (e.g. questions that they didn't know the answer to but would memorize through subsequent loops, etc), limited resources (e.g. money to bribe sam that wouldn't reset meaning they had to ration it, a rubber duck under their podium that they had to give to sam but they each only had one of, etc), events that connected to other events (e.g. asking the question "point or box" where the players could either get 1 point or get a box that would make it easier to reach the shelf of rubber ducks above the stage, etc). i really enjoyed the last of those where they could use something that they learned or obtained from one interaction to help them with a separate one, of which there were many, such as one of the creepy clown's balloons (1) containing a key giving trapp access to a protective sheet to shield his podium from grant's spaghetti (2), meaning that he wouldn't get docked points from random podium inspection (3).
i have two main gripes with this episode that i think could improve an already great episode. the first of which is that i didn't think it lasted long enough. in total, the players only went through 5 iterations of the loop, which i didn't think gave the players enough time to see everything there was to see in the game. the aforementioned "podium prophylactic" only helped trapp in the last loop, and i would have liked to see him start to gain points each and every time from random podium inspection because he practiced Safe Game Show, showing that his actions would be significantly affecting each loop moving forward. similarly, i think it could have been interesting to see the players try to get all of the boxes they needed to reach the shelf on their own, especially once ify (the tallest) showed that he wouldn't help siobhan because she didn't give him a box of her own like trapp did. there's a lot of things like this where the show could have taken advantage of the players' knowledge that they're in a timeloop, and we could see them try to maximize their resources to make sure they'd be getting as many points per loop as possible (like a clicker game where you spend money to increase the amount of money you'll be getting in the future. or like real life ig idk). if the players went through the loop something like ten times instead of five, they would have been able to master the maze game, and we could have seen game changer make some elements harder (like more questions they'd have to memorize, more of roscoe's balloons to pop, etc).
i do recognize that this would have made the episode a lot more repetitive (but honestly i feel that's fitting for a timeloop premise anyway), as well as a lot longer (though we've seen game changer episodes cross the 1-hour mark recently, and plus they could make each loop a little bit shorter so that the total time stays within the standard range) (thinking about it now though, a 2-hour game changer episode would be really cool [and one where it feels like you're doing the same thing over and over again would be fitting for it anyway]).
the other thing i have a bit of an issue with was the manner of the timeloop. the last thing that would happen per loop is that sam would do the iconic wenis dance, except he'd """accidentally""" break one of the cameras and they'd have to reset (the "reset" would of course be to the beginning of the episode). this works i suppose? in the bts paul revealed that one of the original pitches was more fantasy-focused and the timeloop was magical in nature, and i think i do like the direction they went in for the actual episode was a little bit better and more game changer-esque. i'm not a fan of how the episode ended, though, because nothing really happened at all. on the 5th loop sam didn't kick kevin's camera while doing the wenis, and then the episode ended right there. that felt like a really unsatisfying ending to such an enjoyable episode and i was kind of disappointed. in fact, several times during the 5th loop sam straight up told the players that this would be the last one, which didn't feel very interesting to me. i would have enjoyed if the players truly had no idea how long the loop was going to last or if there was anything they could do about it.
and this connects to my next point: i think it would have been cool if the players had been the ones responsible for breaking the loop (common for groundhog day concepts, since they're the only ones who are supposed to remember the loop and thus be able to do anything different for each subsequent iteration). an obvious solution (that i even saw brought up in the comment section) was that they'd have to stop sam from kicking the camera themselves, thus proceeding past the loop point and ending the episode. an idea i like a little better, though, is if the win condition was related to every other scripted event from the episode. like i said earlier, i liked how some events were connected to other events, and i think it could have been really cool if the players had to figure out a really long chain of events that ultimately led to the way out of the loop. what if they used the spider contraption thing to pop the balloons, which gave them the podium prophylactic, thus pleasing the podium inspector who would reward them with a massive chest full of rubber ducks, or something along those lines. eventually at the end they'd learn something or get something that would allow them to finally break the loop once and for all. some long side quest that connected to pretty much everything they'd learned from the loop allowing them to free themselves would be so cool. it would also allow for rewatchability; as a viewer you could watch the episode a second time (ironic) and see all of the clues and hints that were always there but the players didn't know how to make use of yet.
i don't know who would be cast if they repeated the timeloop premise, in all honesty. it would be fitting to do trapp, ify, and siobhan a second time, in true timeloop fashion, but i feel like their experience with the timeloop concept would diminish the fun of figuring out what the game is in the first place, which is one of the goals of every game changer episode, so a new cast would be more interesting in my opinion. sam said in the bts that he wanted to cast smart people who would be able to figure out the premise and then be able to take advantage of it, and i really like the cast they went with. lou wilson, rehka shankar, ally beardsley, and izzy roland are a few i came up with whose reasoning would be hard to put into words, but it's not that important and is just fun to think about.
i also think that it would be really really funny if they did the deja vu episode twice. that would be really really funny
tl;dr 2: i think that this episode is super cool. i just feel like there's a few small issues that could be improved upon to turn an already great episode into an amazing one. i don't think anything would be lost by simply doing the format a second time, it's fantastic and i think there's a lot of unexplored potential that could be explored if they did another episode with the same premise.