How Season 8 Saved The Show

Today, we’re going to talk about something a bit different regarding The Masked Singer. Rather than talk about past contestants and where they’re going to be on tour or celebrities who would be great for the show, today we’re going to talk about how Season 8 saved the show. 

In order to properly talk about it, we’re going to have to go back to Season 7, which is in my opinion, the worst season of the entire show. I remember when they released the first trailer for Season 7 on January 30, 2022. At first, I thought it looked interesting, although I was very confused by the “Good, Bad, and Cuddly” theming that they had announced for the season. When I went to Reddit and I saw that everybody was saying the costumes were terrible, I started to worry about how the actual season would go, because they were right, the new costume designer was a step down from the previous one. A few days later, a news story broke out that destroyed any interest that I had in the show. It was leaked that Ken and Robin walked off the set after Rudy Giuliani had been unmasked. I could not believe that they thought it was a good idea to even put him on the show, and now I was unwilling to watch previous episodes of the show. My dad told me that just because he was on the show, that doesn’t make the season bad, because everybody else could be amazing to make up for that. For a while, I agreed with him, but things only seemed to get worse. More costumes were released, and they all looked bad, and when the list of accolades was released for the whole season, it was embarrassingly small compared to previous seasons. When the season finally premiered, I tried to have fun, but something didn’t feel right. It felt like I was watching celebrities who are not singers trying to sing the most generic songs imaginable. It only got worse when they were unmasked, as most of the celebrities were all people that even I haven’t heard of. The producers also felt the need to add in unnecessary drama that was either staged or could have easily been cut out. I later found out that they brought on a new showrunner for this season, which could explain the lower quality of the show. I watched the entire season, but not because I was enjoying it, but because I wanted to be done with the show altogether. Near the end of the season, my dad said to me that the only thing they could do now is cancel the show, and I agreed with him. When they announced there was going to be an eighth season, I was shocked that they thought they deserved to keep going. I remember that my dad said they could pull it off if they really tried to fix everything from Season 7.

When the first trailer for Season 8 was released on August 15, 2022, my dad and I were blown away with how good it looked. It didn’t try to hype up some sort of gimmick that was pointless or make the show look bigger than it was. Rather, it showed some clips from the season while a beautiful rendition of the song “Pure Imagination” played in the background. All the news that was released in the following weeks about Season 8 got us more excited for it. As it got closer, they released the first performance of the season, which was a performance of “Perfect” by Pink. Me and my dad were amazed by the level of talent from this person that we didn’t recognize, and then we had incredibly high hopes for the season. I later found out that they got rid of the showrunner from the previous season after one season, and hired back the showrunner from Seasons 4, 5, and 6, which probably explains why everything seemed so impressive. When the day of the season premiere arrived, Paul McCartney tweeted that one of his friends was going to be on the show. This got me even more excited, as I was wondering “what celebrity would make Paul McCartney tweet that they were going to be on the show?” Once the first episode premiered, we were amazed by how great it was, as in the first episode alone, there were several great performances, and two living legends were unmasked, which were William Shatner and the celebrity that Paul McCartney was tweeting about, Eric Idle. We found it funny when William Shatner got unmasked, because the first thing that he did was complain about how horrible the costume was, which tells me that if he could, he would have unmasked himself before it was time. This season also introduced a new feature that I really love, which is that when certain celebrities are unmasked, they sing the song they are famous for. This started with Eric Idle performing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from the movie “Life of Brian” after he was unmasked. I enjoy this because it’s a way for some of the celebrities to show why they are famous, and it also gives them one last performance. This season was not perfect though, as there were still some small problems with it. As with every other season, there were several performers who were at a lesser quality compared to everybody else, such as William Shatner, Jeff Dunham, Daymond John, Jerry Springer, and especially Adam Carolla, who gave up near the end of his performance and just started saying avocado puns since his costume was the Avocado. However, they were all still entertaining for the most part. The season also had a format that meant that only one singer would go on from each episode, so as a result, many contestants that would have gone on for a while on any other season only lasted one or two episodes, such as Chris Kirkpatrick, Montell Jordan, Mario Cantone, Gloria Gaynor, Kat Graham, Joey Lawrence, and Ray Parker Jr. Despite that, their performances were all amazing, and I enjoy listening to them regularly. The three contestants that made the finals were also great, as Nikki Glaser was a great example of a celebrity who is not known for singing that is very good at it, Wilson Phillips had amazing harmonies through all of their performances, and their performance of “Ironic” by Alanis Morrisette was incredible, and Amber Riley is one of the best singers and winners the show has ever had, and she was the best person for the show to play clips of in the trailers to get us excited for the show again.

Season 7 destroyed any interest I had in the show, and the fact that there was even a Season 8 is a miracle, and it showed me that the people working on the show could turn it around. I will also be sharing with you all my thoughts on Season 9 and Season 10 at some point in the future!