"Stranger Things: Season 4" Power Rankings

We are back once again with another season of our highly anticipated, incredibly scientific power rankings! This time around, we publish the results for "Stranger Things: Season 4," as a follow-up to our previous power rankings for Season 3 and Season 2. Apparently, and this is news to us, we didn't do power rankings for Season 1, which is... regrettable.

Hot on the heels of the fourth season of Netflix's wildly popular streaming show, we asked around 700 of our closest Facebook friends to answer a handful of questions. Needless to say, we did not receive 700 responses. However, we finally wrangled up enough answers to put together some believable data.

Before we proceed - and this should be super obvious - if you haven't yet watched "Stranger Things: Season 4," you should not continue reading this blog. If you're a fan of the show and you're all the way caught up, however, you're surely chomping at the bit to see what people's opinions were, so give us just one more second here...

Insert obligatory spoiler warning:

As usual, we asked those who took our survey to rank the top "Stranger Things" characters, in order of their importance to the plot. This time around, we also asked them to rank those same characters, from "favorite" to "least favorite."

A couple notes about the ranking questions:

• We gave a list of 20 characters from this season, which was a lot to ask, but we're eternally grateful for those who devoted a few minutes of their time to do so.
• Because the "power rankings" survey is recurring, we included the +/- movement that characters featured in previous polls experienced. Because this was the first time we've done a "favorite character" poll, we don't have any previous polls to compare for movement.
• There were five characters in this season's polls that did not appear in the Season 3 poll.
• In the event of a tie (there was one in each poll), the characters will share a ranking and be listed alphabetically.

In addition to the two ranking polls, we asked eleven multiple choice or short-answer questions, two of which were optional.

With no further ado, here are the results:

Season 4 Power Rankings Survey

• Biggest movers: Max Mayfield (+10), Erica Sinclair (-8)
• New this season: Doctor Brenner (Papa)
• Dropped from rankings: Billy Hargrove, Alexei, Mayor Larry Kline
• Most powerful: No one ranked Eleven lower than #2.

Season 4 Favorite Character Survey

• People person: Everyone who took this survey had Steve Harrington in their Top Three.

Question 1: Describe Vecna in one sentence.

• "Twisted and tormented, yet powerful and looking for vengeance."
• "Creepy as heck but less scary as the season goes on."
• "The Devil."
• "Pure evil awesomeness."
• "Eeeevvvviiilll!"
• "The ultimate picture of vengeance wrapped up with perfect storytelling."
• "The artist formerly known as One formerly known as Henry Creel."
• "Pants or no pants? That is the question."

Question 2: Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)" is...

Question 3: Pineapple on pizza is...

Question 4: Who was Season 4's MVP?

Question 5: Other than an MVP candidate, whose performance in Season 4 was most pleasantly surprising?

Question 6: Whose performance in Season 4 was most disappointing?

Question 7: What deserves a trophy for "Moment of the Season"?

Question 8: Which of the main characters is most likely to die in Season 5? (Pick two)

• Eleven - 62.5%
• Steve Harrington - 50%
• Will Byers - 50%
• Mike Wheeler - 12.5%

Question 9: Rate Season 4, on a scale from 1 (bad) to 5 (amazing)

• 5 - 62.5%
• 4 - 37.5%

Question 10: Make a bold prediction for Season 5.

• "Mike and Eleven will break up again."
• "Vecna uses Will against the others."
• "Max will come back to live and will have gained some of Eleven’s powers. She will fight Vecna again and possibly take over for Eleven should she die."
• "Will is to Vecna as Harry Potter is to Voldemort. Vecna will use Eddie to torment Dustin. Max will wake up with powers."
• "Max gets powers."
• "It ends with Will. Will’s death will be necessary to end it (whether the Mind Flayer uses him after Vecna or some other connection)."
• "Hopper remembers that he absolutely wrecked his ankle with a pickaxe and begins to walk with a slight limp."

Question 11: Do you have any other thoughts not covered by the previous questions?

• "They did a great job of spreading the work among the characters, and each different story was interesting. It didn't feel as much like there was a main character this season."
• "The end of Season 4 Episode 1 was the scariest thing they've ever done in the entire series. Legitimately terrifying. Episode 7 was masterful - nearly perfect and one of the best episodes of TV that I've seen in years. Also, I don't know what happened with Robin, but her dialogue got, like, so dumb in the final two or three episodes. Overall, very strong season."
• "I wanted more from Jason’s death. He was too annoying to die so quickly."
• "It was hard to choose between Eddie and Max for MVP, and Eddie’s metal concert and Hopper’s sword fighting for best moment."
• "I think it was good but that they should have ended it with Season 4. I was ready for a kick-A ending. Also, how are they possibly gonna make it scarier? Sheesh."
• "They killed Eddie too soon. I saw it coming but I wish he could have stayed for the final season (or at least graduated high school 😭😭😭). Also I’m still upset that he’s the villain of Hawkins after the 'earthquake.'"

*****

Well, there you have it! What did we get right? What did we get wrong? What thoughts do you have about Season 4? How do you think they'll wrap this all up? Let us know in the comments section below, on Twitter (here and here) or hit us up on Facebook.

Until next time,

🙃🙃🙃

MCU Power Rankings - January 2022

It has been two and a half years since the last time we ranked the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A lot has changed since then. Four new movies have been released since the summer of 2019, including Black Widow, which was officially delayed three times due to the pandemic. When we ranked the MCU 30 months ago, Avengers: Endgame had just come out and Disney+ wasn't even a thing yet. Needless to say, it's been a while. Once the largely maligned Eternals hit streaming services, we figured it was a good time to poll the people and develop new power rankings for the 27 movies and five TV shows in the ever-expanding galaxy of Marvel Comics.

Before we get into the fun stuff, we need to explain a few things. If you'll allow us...

How were the movie rankings determined?

In the past, we've used a website to help determine numbered rankings - that is, we used a system where people would rank things in order, from best to worst (e.g., favorite movie, second favorite movie, third favorite movie, etc.). We discovered that that has now become a "paid" feature, and we're cheap, so we couldn't use that anymore. This time around, we used Google Forms, and asked those who took the survey to rate the movies on a scale from 1-10, with an "N/A" column for movies that they have not seen. (The "N/A" column awarded zero points per vote.)

Once we closed the poll, we added up the scores for all of the movies, then ranked them in order of total points, from high to low, with the movie getting the most points as the top-ranked movie on the list, the movie with the least points in last place, and so forth.

Tie-breakers for the three instances where two movies received the same amount of points were determined by examining the number of 8-, 9- and 10-point votes those pairs of movies received. The movie that received the most "high" votes won the tie-breaker. For instance, if a movie with three 8-point votes and one 9-point vote tied with a movie that had one 8-point vote, two 9-point votes and a 10-point vote, the second movie would have won the tie-breaker.

How were the TV show rankings determined?

We used a golf-style scoring system to rank the five Disney+ TV shows, meaning that we asked those who took the survey to rank the shows from best (1) to worst (5) - with a 6-point "N/A" option for shows they haven't watched - then calculated the scores. The show with the lowest point total became the top-rated show and the program with the most points became the lowest-ranked on the list.

Did any problems arise during this process, and were any adjustments made to the scoring?

One big problem with this new method of voting (as opposed to literally ranking the movies) is that someone who really loves Marvel could hypothetically go in and just give everything a 10 without having to explain themselves or justify their scoring. We saw that quite a few people who took the survey gave out lots of 8s and 9s, and a good number of people didn't rate anything lower than a 5 or 6. We believe that taking an average of all of the points helped balance out people who consistently voted high or people who gave responses that didn't make much sense (like irrationally disliking a movie that was otherwise scored highly by others, or vice versa). However, we would have preferred to use the other ranking system that would have, for example, made people assign a rank to the four movies to which they gave 9s.

We had to manually adjust several scores for Eternals, in particular. Two people admitted that they gave Eternals a score, despite not actually having seen the movie. One responder rated it as an "N/A" when they took the survey, then watched it a few days later and provided an updated score. So once we tallied the votes, we zeroed-out the scores that shouldn't have counted and added the points for the updated ranking in question.

We deleted two surveys that had results we determined were intentionally trying to negatively skew the results. We haven't put up with trolls in the past, and we kept it that way.

How will this data be displayed?

First, we'll reveal the results of our survey, which we feel is pretty good but certainly not without flaws, which we will break down below the chart. There were three tie-breakers, as explained earlier in this blog, and the winners of those ties are denoted with a + symbol.

Second, because we previously power-ranked the MCU films back in 2019, we created our own "Signs of the Times" rankings, which we will compare with the list we made three years ago. We added a column to that chart to show how our rankings have changed over the past two and a half years.

Following that, we'll unveil the survey results for our Disney+ rankings. Because this is the first time we've ranked the TV shows, those rankings will not be compared to any other lists; it will simply show how the survey votes ended up.

Finally, we also asked people who took our survey to tell us which Marvel movie they'd want to re-watch most, as well as which movie they'd be fine never watching again. Those results will be displayed as percentages.

With no further ado, here's how everything shook out:

MCU Power Rankings - survey results, January 2022

Analysis: After looking over this list, we notice some major flaws in these rankings - namely, that there were a lot of people who took the survey that hadn't seen recent MCU entries like Black Widow, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Eternals. It's practically egregious that No Way Home didn't even crack the top five, let alone the top two or three. Eternals received half the points of the movie directly above it (that's really, really sad, by the way). This appears to be a combination of the movie being objectively bad and the fact that lots of people simply haven't watched it yet.

Interestingly, the voters appear to really like Ant-Man and really dislike Captain Marvel.

Signs of the Times MCU Power Rankings - comparison between 2022 and 2019

Biggest positive movers: Doctor Strange, Spider-Man: Homecoming: +2

Biggest negative movers: Spider-Man: Far From Home: -5

Disney+ Power Rankings

Analysis: Despite being the most polarizing program on the Disney+ slate thus far, WandaVision ended up being the best received by our voters. Based on the survey results, we deduced that hardly anyone that took the survey has watched What If...? (which is a shame). Also, it appears that many people either didn't watch The Falcon & The Winter Soldier or started it but didn't finish; it consistently received the lowest non-"N/A" votes of any of the five shows.

If you had to re-watch any Marvel movie right now, which would it be?

Analysis: Is it recency bias or just a great movie? The people have spoken, and they loved Spider-Man: No Way Home.

If you had to choose one Marvel movie to NEVER watch again, which would it be?

Analysis: By and large, it's the usual suspects - but there were also a couple surprises on this list. We demand an explanation!

*****

Final thoughts

First of all, we want to thank everyone who took a couple minutes to fill out our survey. These days, we don't get around to blogging just for the sake of it very much, so any excuse we can find to whip up a nice little post is certainly welcome.

When we first tallied up the results, we felt pretty good about the list. Upon further inspection, however, it became very clear that some movies (No Way Home, particularly) got punished by the "N/A" column, so the final standings weren't quite what we thought they should be. On the other hand, we anticipate some feedback about our SotT rankings (Thor: Ragnarok particularly), too, so let us hear what you think.

In summary, our recommendations would be these:

• If you haven't seen Spider-Man: No Way Home, you should definitely get out and see it.
• If you haven't watched What If...?, summon your strength and get through the first episode (it's probably the worst of the bunch) and give the animation style a chance. It took us a couple episodes to get used to it, but it looks like some of this stuff will end up being pretty important for Doctor Strange 2.
• If you haven't seen Eternals yet... take your time. Literally, find anything else to watch. We live-tweeted it and had a blast because there was so much to make fun of. It's a big, giant mess and there's only one character that is even somewhat likable. By MCU standards, it is really not very good.
• If you haven't watched Black Widow, let's be honest - they made that movie about five years too late, but they do introduce one really fun character that may or may not pop up in an important role in one of the Disney+ series.
• If you couldn't make it through The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, we would be glad to give you the Cliff Notes version. You know how to find us.

So there you have it! A gigantic, nerdy blog about all the stuff we've spent the last 14 years of our lives watching. Please, please, please let us know what you think about our final rankings by leaving a comment on this post, following us on Twitter (here and here) or hitting us up on Facebook.

Until next time.

Ranking the Jeopardy! Guest Hosts

 

When the news broke that Alex Trebek passed away in 2020, I started watching a lot of "Jeopardy!" And when I say "a lot of 'Jeopardy!'," I mean that I watched a ton of "Jeopardy!"

As a work-from-home, first-time father, I spend a lot of time on the couch, so I just started watching as much of it as I could. I started recording the syndicated episodes so I could catch the tail end of Alex's 37-year run, I watched literally every single episode that was on Netflix at the time and I even read Mr. Trebek's 2020 autobiography, The Answer Is....

My enthusiasm for the show didn't wane when the show announced an upcoming schedule of celebrity guest hosts - perhaps to find a permanent replacement for the late, great Alex Trebek. I was intrigued to find out how these guests would perform and anxious to find out who they'd ultimately pick as a successor. Needless to say, I feel qualified to write this blog because I've watched nearly every single episode with a guest host, other than a couple shows that didn't record, due to weird glitches with my DVR.

If you've got nothing else going on and need something to read, I'll share my knowledge with you and then we can compare notes if you're still with me at the end.

Early Expectations

My early money was on legendary "Jeopardy!" champion Ken Jennings - who I interviewed for the Deseret News in 2014 - but a few other names stood out, like longtime news anchor (and iconic Early 2000s reality TV show host) Anderson Cooper, piqued my interest.

One notable omission from the first guest host list was LeVar Burton, who has for some time been an Internet darling for Alex Trebek's ultimate replacement. Burton was kind of the television voice of my childhood education, as host of "Reading Rainbow," and I met him back at a Salt Lake Comic Convention a few years back, so I thought he'd do a great job, if given the chance.

The Internet did what it does and campaigned to get Burton a "Jeopardy!" hosting gig; an online petition at change.org garnered (at the time of writing this post) digital signatures of 267,377 people who wanted Burton to become the permanent host. In addition, Burton himself actively campaigned for the job on Twitter. Here's one of his tweets:

Not gonna lie, I feel like I’ve been preparing my whole life to occupy the @Jeopardy host podium when Alex retires. #Jeopardy https://t.co/N1HrMTCaYI

— LeVar Burton (@levarburton) September 22, 2020

Eventually, Burton, along with several others, were tacked onto the list of guest hosts, for a total of 16 stand-ins. It was time to usher in a new era for one of America's favorite game shows.

A Brief Breakdown of the Guest Hosts

Ken Jennings had, arguably, the toughest job of all: being the first to step into the gigantic footprints left by the beloved Alex Trebek. But as a familiar face who has spent more time on that stage than any other contestant in the history of the show, he fit in seamlessly. His familiarity with the game was evident, his pacing was perfect and, although he wasn't Alex, he felt like the next best thing. Jennings remained at the podium for six weeks - three times more than any other guest host.

Replacing Jennings was the executive producer of "Jeopardy!," Mike Richards. I'd never heard of the guy, but he ended up being a great moderator, as well. He was fast-paced, friendly and interesting enough that I Googled him to learn more about him. At the time, I thought he'd also be good as a full-time host, but thought I'd reserve my final judgment until I'd seen more guest hosts.

Not all of the celebrities were a home run, though. The next two guest hosts were Katie Couric and Dr. Oz, and I didn't particularly care for either of them. Couric came off as an annoying mom trying to be cool (I still remember her referring to the contestants as "you little braniacs," and that just drove me absolutely nuts), and Dr. Oz had a great "game show host" voice but reportedly rubbed people the wrong way while he was there.

The immediate celebrity frontrunner, according to Twitter, was current NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers - a Celebrity Jeopardy! champion with an unapologetic love of the show. First of all, there is no chance on the good, green Earth that Aaron Rodgers is quitting his day job to host a game show. Not a chance in the world. I'll give it to him, though. Rodgers actually ended up doing a good job. His presentation was rather slow and occasionally awkward. Basically, he came off as a guy who wasn't used to hosting trivia contests. But he was humorous and truly seemed to be enjoying himself, so I forgave him.

A handful of news anchors and reporters filled in, as well. I'm not familiar enough with news and politics to understand whether I'm supposed to hate these people, based on my personal beliefs or whatever, so I went in unbiased. Here's a quick breakdown of what I thought of them:

• I will always love Anderson Cooper because of the classic reality TV show "The Mole" (Netflix just added the first two seasons of, by the way!). He was a solid host, though a bit stiff at times. He eventually lightened up a little bit, which was good to see.
• I had no idea who Bill Whitaker was when he stepped onto the stage. Turns out he's on "60 Minutes." Although he didn't strike me as full-time-host caliber, his voice was extremely soothing and he just seemed like the nicest old grandpa or neighbor you could ever want. I really enjoyed his time on the show.
• Savannah Guthrie from "NBC TODAY"... or as I like to call her, "Katie Couric, Jr." Not unlike Couric, I didn't particularly like Guthrie as guest host. She seemed happy to be there but I would have a hard time tuning in to watch her night after night.
• I have something to say about most of the guest hosts, either good or bad. Such was not the case for George Stephanopolous ("Good Morning America"). I can't remember practically anything about his time on the show.
• Also from the ranks of "Good Morning America" was Robin Roberts, who I was somewhat familiar with from her work on ESPN. I thought she did a good job on "Jeopardy!" She was enthusiastic (sometimes a bit too enthusiastic, maybe) and undeniably likable during her one-week stint.
• The penultimate guest host was CNBC's David Faber - a "Celebrity Jeopardy!" champion in his own right! I was a bit behind when he took over but had seen people online saying that he was great. After wrapping up his episodes earlier today, I have to agree! He was fast-paced and not a distracting presence. I think he would make a very good host.

At the time I wrote this blog, sportscaster Joe Buck was serving as the final of the 16 guest hosts. I know that a lot of sports fans get irritated by him, but I don't mind him doing sports commentary and I have been liking him on "Jeopardy!" so far, too. He's clearly having a good time, and I always appreciate when Alex and others have found ways to inject humor and personality into the game without derailing the competition.

Two guest hosts that I was really pleased with were Miyam Bialik and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. I know that there are some aspects of Bialik's personal life that are a bit... odd.. but my favorite actor is Tom Cruise, so who am I to judge? She is essentially a real-life genius, so she knows her stuff, and she commanded the game well, unlike several other hosts. I knew nothing of Gupta's life or credits, despite his name sounding vaguely familiar, but he also came off as very well educated and unafraid of the big stage. His attempt to do The Sprinkler remains a top highlight of the Guest Host Era. I tried to find a GIF of it but failed.

There were two guest hosts that I thought let excitement and expectations get the best of them: former "Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions" winner Buzzy Cohen and our old pal, LeVar Burton. Buzzy, whose real name is not "Buzzy" and who literally mentioned to Alex Trebek during his tournament run that his dream was to replace him as host, seemed tickled pink to have a crack at running the show, but his pacing was sporadic and his enthusiasm seemed to get in the way of the game from time to time. I mean, he wasn't bad, but a little Buzzy goes a long way. We'll get to LeVar in just a second.

Last week, a report surfaced, saying that Mike Richards was in "advanced negotiations" to become the permanent host of "Jeopardy!" As you might imagine, the Internet was NOT HAPPY about this news, for a couple different reasons - particularly because LeVar Burton had not been selected. We live in a society where people love to get outraged about things, simply for the sake of it, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the people who were reportedly furious that LeVar Burton probably wasn't going to be the permanent host don't watch "Jeopardy!" and/or didn't see LeVar Burton as guest host. I'm happy to walk that one back if somebody can prove me wrong, but that's the assumption I'm going to make.

My man LeVar put himself in a really tough spot by campaigning so hard for the job. I'd say that the bar was set higher for him than it was for anyone else, other than maybe Ken Jennings - but he did it to himself. So how'd he do?

He was stiff. He was awkward. He was slow. He randomly shouted the verdict of contestants' responses a couple times. Once, he accidentally told someone he got a question wrong, then had to correct himself immediately. He had long, awkward pauses a couple times, including during Final Jeopardy! on his last show. It was really rough, honestly. He's a super nice guy and I wished him nothing but the best for this gig, but it was not good. If you're going to get upset about something in the comments section of a post today, the "LeVar Burton Must Replace Alex Trebek" hill is definitely not the one you want to die on. He wasn't the best guest host. Not by a long shot. And it's too bad. He set himself up to win and didn't even come close.

The Official Announcement

Earlier today, "Jeopardy!" announced their official decision. In an unprecedented move, the show has decided to move forward with not one but two permanent hosts: Mike Richards and Miyam Bialik. Richards will handle the day-to-day, syndicated programming, and Bialik will appear on all "spin-offs," such as prime-time events and tournaments.

Personally, I love this move. I had Richards and Bialik ranked very high on my list, which we'll get to in a moment, and I think they'll do as good a job as anyone.

I know that this decision is causing a lot of dissention among fans (or, as explained previously, people who claim to watch simply as an excuse to argue). People are still pissed that it's not LeVar Burton, but he wasn't good enough. Even if you're the most qualified person in the universe, if you go in and bomb the interview, sometimes you don't get chosen. That's life, bruv. I'm not going to beat that dead horse any further.

People have got issues with the lack of diversity in televised trivia. I saw one random person complaining on Twitter that "Jeopardy!" had a perfectly diverse candidate in LeVar Burton and were opting to go with "a generic white guy" instead. Don't tell anyone I said that, but... isn't that racist? "We shouldn't choose this person because they're a white man." Am I wrong? I say you hire the best person for the job, regardless of gender, race or any other factor. But hey, what do I know?

I was fine with the rumor that it was just going to be Mike Richards because I thought he performed really well "in the interview," so to speak. The fact that we're getting two of my top candidates is awesome news, in my opinion.

Guest Host Power Rankings

As of this exact moment in time, Joe Buck currently still has two episodes left in his stay, so the final section of this blog is subject (but unlikely) to change. I was planning on saving this blog until the weekend, once the Guest Host Era was over, but when the big announcement dropping this afternoon, I needed to fast-track the post.

With no further ado and with no more gilding the lily, here is how I ranked the "Jeopardy!" guest hosts, from first to worst:

1. Ken Jennings

2. Mike Richards

3. Mayim Bialik

4. Sanjay Gupta

5. David Faber

6. Aaron Rodgers

7. Joe Buck

8. Robin Roberts

9. Anderson Cooper

10. LeVar Burton

11. Bill Whitaker

12. Buzzy Cohen

13. Savannah Guthrie

14. Dr. Oz

15. Katie Couric

16. George Stephanopoulos

How'd I Do?

If you're a TV trivia junkie like me, feel free to let me know if I got the list right. Leave me a comment if you think I got it wrong. You can tweet me (here and here). You can text me. You can look me up on the ol' Facebook, if you truly desire.

But do me a favor and just phrase your feedback in the form of a question.

Until next time.

"Stranger Things: Season 3" Power Rankings

A funny thing happens when Netflix simultaneously releases all episodes of a new season of a popular program. Apparently, a LOT of people watch the whole thing that same day. Such was the case this past Fourth of July.

According to variety.com, Season 3 of the mega-popular Neflix Original "Stranger Things" reached 26.4 million unique users between July 4 - July 7, 2019, including an estimated 824,000 viewers who watched the entire eight-episode season within 24 hours.

Sheesh.

I, on the other hand, was on vacation in the mountains at the time the new season of "Stranger Things" hit Netflix, and I didn't get a chance to even start watching it for about a week. What I've come to learn is that, in this era of Millennial binge-watching, if you snooze, you lose. In this case, I snoozed on watching the season (and, subsequently, with sending out a poll for another round of power rankings), and I lost out on the popularity of this post. Basically, I missed the golden window of "Stranger Things" hype this time around, and, at this point, I am not sure anyone is even still talking about it.

Regardless, I feel an obligation to post updated character rankings, and am prepared to do so now. Also, I'm not really going to issue a clear and obvious SPOILER WARNING because if you took the time to read this, you were probably one of the people who binge-watched it all in one sitting, so congratulations, good for you and thanks for reading.

First, let me say that I really enjoyed Season 3 and think that it was probably the best season so far. Certainly, leaps and bounds better than Season 2, which, in retrospect, was not very good.

Secondly, let me point out that practically all of the so-called "bold predictions" we made in our Season 2 Virtual Roundtable were completely wrong. However, I did somewhat accurately predict that somebody would end up moving away from Hawkins. I'll add that to the tally of things that I have ever guess correctly, bringing my grand total, I think, to three.

And lastly, if you want a refresher of our Season 2 Power Rankings, click here.

Here we go:

Biggest Movers: Billy Hargrove, +10; Mike Wheeler, -9
New This Season: Robin, Murray "Bald Eagle" Bauman, Erica Sinclair, Alexei, Suzie the Mormon, Mrs. Wheeler, Mayor Larry Kline
Dropped From the Rankings: Bob "The Brain" Newby, Eight/Kali

Quick Analysis:

• Jim Freaking Hopper. Two straight seasons at #1! (No way he's actually dead, BTW. Not a chance.)
• Big season for Billy Hargrove, who was infested by the Mind Flayer and put up quite the fight against Eleven and the gang before his untimely and somewhat heroic demise. Also rose in popularity with middle-aged women.
• Bad season for many of the O.G.s, including Mike, Will and Lucas, who all dropped no fewer than five spots in the rankings.
• On the other hand, Eleven bounced back from a rough stretch in Season 2, and Dustin Henderson maintained his spot at #3.
• Despite a lackluster showing from our favorite food court worker, Steve Harrington stayed in the top 10, landing at #6 but failing to land a date with his co-worker, who, it turns out, was a lesbian all along.
• Speaking of which... There were a ton of new faces in Season 3, as well as the re-emergence of some minor characters from the last couple years. Scoops Ahoy sleuth Robin had a strong debut at #5, and the Russian-speaking duo of Murray "Bald Eagle" Bauman and Alexei wound up, INCREDIBLY IRONICALLY, at #7 and #11, respectively. Lucas' diminutive and incredibly annoying sister, Erica, crawled her way up the ranks to her ultimate destination at #9.
• 'Twas an unfortunate first impression for Suzie the Mormon, Mrs. Wheeler and Mayor Larry Kline, who all debuted at the bottom of the power rankings. Better luck next time, folks.

There you have it! How did you like Season 3? Any major objections to the way the power rankings shook out? Let us know in the comments below, on Facebook or Twitter... unless you've moved on and don't want to talk about it anymore, in which case we totally understand.

Catch you on the flip side, friends. 🙃🙃🙃

Re-ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe - July 2019

Coinciding with the theatrical release of "Avengers: Endgame," we re-watched (almost) and re-ranked every movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we did so in great detail. You can read it here. But now, taking "Endgame" into consideration, along with the recently released "Spider-man: Far From Home," we've updated our standings.

Because we so extensively reviewed the movies in previous blogs, including talking "Endgame" and "Far From Home" in this new blog, we've decided to shorten our thoughts down to the old reliable #140Characters or less.

Behold:

23. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Never saw it. Likely never will. Swapping Norton with Ruffalo made this movie feel completely obsolete. I pretend it doesn't exist.

22. Iron Man 3 (2013)

My least favorite Marvel film. The Mandarin twist totally ruined this entire movie. #unforgivable

21. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

The first MCU movie I'd have felt uncomfortable taking kids to. Awesome soundtrack, fun characters, but couldn't live up to its predecessor.

20. Iron Man 2 (2010)

Introduced us to Black Widow and a new actor playing War Machine. Whiplash had a cool scene. A decent but largely forgettable sequel.

19. Thor (2011)

My least favorite of the "Big Three" origin movies. Too much hype about shirtless Hemsworth. Thankfully, Thor has gotten better with time.

18. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Gotta love Ant-Man, but this movie felt almost entirely inconsequential until the post-credits scene. Evangeline Lilly did well as the Wasp.

17. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

It was humorous. It was very colorful. But that doesn't mean it was great. They tried so hard to be funny that it got to be distracting.

16. Spider-man: Homecoming (2017)

Another Spidey reboot? Really? Better than expected, but still wasn't ready to fully accept a new Peter Parker. Michael Keaton was awesome.

15. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

A good movie, but we didn't truly understand what Marvel was building quite yet. Perhaps they didn't, either. #StarSpangledManWithAPlan

14. Thor: The Dark World (2013) - Up two spots after watching "Endgame"

I liked it to begin with, but it feels much more important in retrospect, after seeing Endgame. However, arguably the worst MCU villains.

13. Black Panther (2018)

A very important movie for particular demographics. Killmonger was a fantastic villain and, overall, the movie wasn't half bad. #TeamShuri

12. Captain Marvel (2019)

Kicked off a new era (and destination) for the MCU. For better or worse, the gender of the hero does not determine the quality of the movie.

11. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - Up two spots after watching "Endgame"

You may have forgotten all the good stuff that happens in Ultron. I know I did. This is another one that is better after watching Endgame.

10. Doctor Strange (2016)

Perhaps the most underrated movie of the MCU. Tremendous special effects, a cool new character and some doctrinally accurate life lessons.

9. Ant-Man (2015)

A heist movie! Ant-Man was a much cooler character than ever anticipated. Hilarious - one of the funniest movies of the MCU.

8. Iron Man (2008)

A movie that changed the history of Hollywood. A perfect, intriguing introduction to the world of Marvel superheroes. All-time classic.

7. Spider-man: Far From Home (2019)

Definite improvement over Homecoming. Mysterio is instantly a top villain. Tom Holland is growing into his role perfectly. Would see again.

6. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Unbelievably, shockingly, this movie totally  worked! A blast, from start to finish - the most rewatchable movie of the MCU. #BestSoundtrack

5. Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Team Cap vs Team Stark lived up to the billing. Our first look at the new Spider-man and Black Panther. Loved the airport fight scene.

4. Marvel's The Avengers (2012)

Some weren't sure a big-screen team-up of this magnitude would work. Turns out, it was just a taste of things to come. Ground. Breaking.

3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

A bonafide spy thriller. Captain America high-jumps up the superhero power rankings and becomes the new face of truth & justice. #HailHYDRA

2. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The final battle was the most glorious scene in the history of cinema. Truly jaw-dropping. A beautiful end for the original Avengers.

1. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

The greatest superhero movie ever made. Everybody got a chance to shine, and an ending that absolutely nobody saw coming. Incredible stuff.

Avengers: Endgame - Power Rankings and Exit Survey

Marvel movie release dates referred to as "the Super Bowl of pop culture." If that's the case, the release of "Avengers: Endgame" was the Super Bowl on steroids. It was legitimate worldwide phenomenon, making $1.2 billion dollars during its opening weekend without breaking a sweat. One-point-two BILLION DOLLARS. Not unlike Thanos himself, this movie is breaking records with no regard for human life.

There is a great chance that we, as a movie-going generation do not currently comprehend the magnitude of what we experienced nearly two weeks ago. We may well look back on these Marvel movies, years from now, and be amazed that we lived through it all. These shows have revolutionized Hollywood and has shaped our lives over the past 11 years. As such, we understood that people would want to talk about their feelings. There were a lot of feelings. And we tried our best to encapsulate those thoughts by way of two separate surveys.

First, we asked people to "power rank" the characters from the movie in two polls - one to determine the most powerful and important Marvel superheroes, and another to decide the most popular characters.

Secondly, we created an "exit survey" to ask how people felt about certain aspects of the film: what they liked, what made them sad, which scenes disappointed them, how they feel about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and many other questions.

Before we get to the results, let's go over a couple things that will help the rest of the blog make more sense:

What are power rankings?

We're so glad you asked! We discovered that this concept might be foreign to some of our readers, so we wrote up a quick post about it, which you can read here.

Who was surveyed?

• Power Rankings: Twenty of our friends, family and co-workers took our power rankings survey, from ages in the mid-20s to mid-50s. Fifteen men and five women were polled.
• Exit Survey: Forty people took the exit survey, including friends, family members, co-workers, referrals (e.g. a co-worker's significant other, etc.) and one random person from the Internet that found the survey on Twitter. The age range and gender ratio are therefore unknown, although we are certain that 25 men and 14 women were polled.

What do the columns mean in the power ranking charts?

Each ranking (1-25 for the "power" rankings and 1-28 for the "favorite" rankings) came with a designated number of points. That means that a first place vote for one's favorite character awarded 28 points to that character. A last place vote awarded one point. A perfect score (meaning that every voter ranked a character as the top superhero) would manifest itself as a maximum score of 25 points for the power/importance survey and a maximum score of 28 for the favorite survey. The average score given to each character is represented in the aptly named "Average Score" column.

This is not our first rodeo, as far as Marvel power rankings go. We did power rankings before "Infinity War" and a couple weeks ago, before "Endgame." The "Pre-EG Rank" and "Pre-I.W. Rank" columns will show movement over time, as an indication of how respondents feel about the characters now, post-Endgame, in comparison with those previous polls.

The "Popular Picks" column represents the ranking for which a superhero received the most votes, independent of any other characters. For instance, Spider-man received four 8th place votes, which was more than the amount of votes that he received for any other ranking.

"Highest Pick" shows the highest ranking that any voter gave to a particular character, with the amount of voters giving that rank in parenthesis. For instance, 10 voters believed that Captain Marvel is the strongest or most important character.

Conversely, the "Lowest Pick" column shows the lowest ranking given by any voters that took the survey. Thus, we see that five people indicated that Korg was the weakest or least important character.

Your percentages sometimes add up to more than 100%

Yeah, yeah. We know. Excel rounded up. Not our fault.

Why are most of the graphics typed up in Comic Sans font?

Because we wanted to be hilarious. Mission accomplished.

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Sound good? Clear as mud? Let's get to it! Oh, and by the way...

Please don't proceed past this point if you haven't seen "Avengers: Endgame." Thanks.

Most Important/Powerful Characters:

* This survey includes only characters that were shown as surviving and on active duty at the end of the movie.

Doctor Strange with the upset! The master of the mystic arts came through with the dark horse victory over Captain Marvel as our most important and powerful character, thanks no doubt in large part to his role in foreseeing the one scenario in which the Avengers could defeat Thanos. We didn't get to hear the full story during "Endgame," but if Spider-man is to be believed, Stephen Strange was instrumental in the resurrection of the "snapped" Avengers.

While undoubtedly one of the most powerful characters (and, as some have argued, the most overpowered Avenger), Captain Marvel fell to second place, perhaps due to her absence throughout most of the movie. Apparently, she had more important stuff going on elsewhere.

Thor, Black Panther and the Incredible Hulk round out the top five, followed by Ant-Man, Falcon, Spider-man, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye in the top ten.

The rankings were not kind to sidekicks. Slots 18 through 25 were filled with secondary characters, the likes of War Machine (18), Wong (20), Okoye (22) and our poor pal Korg (25). Also of note is the debuting and freshly armored Pepper Potts, who landed at #21.

Biggest Movers:

Sam Wilson deservedly showed the most improvement in power and importance from the time before "Infinity War" to the days following "Endgame." He's up 11 spots after taking on the mantle of Captain America. Another notable improvement was that of Scarlet Witch, who went from an afterthought to almost single-handedly making Thanos cry "uncle" in "Endgame." Additionally, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man and, surprisingly, Drax the Destroyer are all up five spots two movies later.

Star-Lord took a back seat in the time between the two-part Thanos storyline, down five spots from his standing before the Mad Titan took control of the Infinity Stones.

The "Pre-Endgame" to "Post-Endgame" standings are a bit misleading, in that 16 characters were added to the "Post-Endgame" survey that were either "dead" or not included in previous surveys. We see the negative movement of War Machine, Nebula and Okoye more as a sign that they failed to maintain their rank than a sign of diminishing power or importance.

Favorite Characters:

Our old friend Steve Rogers claimed a two-point margin of victory in the "Favorite Characters" survey. He and his lifetime of contributions to the safety of the United States earned him the distinguished honor of being the most popular character in the Infinity Saga. Iron Man, Ant-Man and Thor also proved to be beloved amongst our voters, with Doctor Strange rounding out the top five.

Surprisingly, Peter Parker wound up in twelfth place, below less traditionally popular characters like Black Widow, the Incredible Hulk, Rocket Raccoon and Hawkeye. It doesn't appear that Carol Danvers' Other-Planets-Come-Before-Earth attitude won her many fans; despite having the most recent solo film (and its accompanying, somewhat polarizing marketing campaign), Captain Marvel ended in a tie with Clint Barton for tenth place.

With "Endgame" serving as an apparent send-off for the original six Avengers (Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow and Hawkeye), it just feels right that none of them finished outside of the top ten.

Biggest Movers:

Rocket Raccoon showed the greatest positive change from pre-Infinity War to post-Endgame, sliding up five spots in the final results. A little screen time will do you good, won't it? Black Widow moved up four spots after her emotional farewell, and the wisecracking Scott Lang got even more popular by moving up four on his end. Other positive movers included Iron Man and Bucky Barnes, who improved by three spots each.

Groot's lack of visibility (literally) resulted in a six spot decline, the same amount experienced by War Machine, who is traditionally one of the least popular Avengers, according to our previous polls. And then there's Star-Lord. He dropped ten spots from the time before "Infinity War" to the present day. That's not good. Shouldn't have punched Thanos, man.

Despite 19 new or resurrected characters being added from pre-Infinity War to post-Endgame, three people somehow managed to improve their popularity - and they're exactly the three people you'd expect them to be: Captain America, Iron Man and Black Widow. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Again, keep in mind that, in this case, 16 characters that were not on the "Pre-Endgame" survey were added to the post-movie poll. Six characters dropped spots in popularity with our voters from the time before they saw "Endgame" to the time they walked out of the theater, including Captain Marvel, who dropped by four, and Okoye, who dropped a whopping 13 spots. We were surprised to see that Nebula, who was much improved from her role in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies, fell by seven.

Who was the MVP?:

Iron Man - 65%, Captain America - 20%, Other - 8%, Ant-Man - 5%, Incredible Hulk - 2%

It's almost impossible not to give the MVP award to Tony Stark. He started the MCU with "Iron Man" back in 2008, and it was perfectly fitting for him to be the one to finish off Thanos in "Endgame." He also played an integral role in helping the team figure out how to make time travel possible and served as a mentor and father figure to many of the Avengers who lived to tell the tale.

It was also a strong finish for Steve Rogers, the man who was front and center for most of the final battle against the Mad Titan. Honorable mention goes to Scott Lang, who came up with the "time heist" concept that Bruce Banner and (ultimately) Stark would implement as a way of retrieving the Infinity Stones from alternate, past timelines.

Most Improved Character Since "Infinity War":

Nebula - 43%, Incredible Hulk - 33%, Black Widow - 20%

It was nice to see Nebula play an important role in a movie, after not having done much to move her popularity meter after two appearances in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies. Also receiving some love were Hulk, who definitely redeemed himself after being a total waste of space in "Infinity War," and Black Widow, whose ultimate act of selflessness left a lasting impression on our voters.

Despite having arguably his best (and funniest) outing to date, War Machine did not receive any votes for "Most Improved."

Favorite Side Mission:

The Battle of New York: 73%, Vormir: 15%, Asgard - 13%

Starting the time travel sequences with the Battle of New York was a great choice; there is, perhaps, no more groundbreaking nor beloved moment in the entire MCU, and 73 percent of our voters liked the return to the climax of "Marvel's Avengers" the most. The heavy toll exacted by Black Widow and Hawkeye's trip to Vormir also received votes, and the visit to Asgard certainly made "Thor: The Dark World" feel more important than ever.

The side mission to Morag did not receive any votes.

Best Team-up:

Captain America/Iron Man/Hulk/Ant-Man - 48%, Black Widow/Hawkeye - 28%, Thor/Rocket Raccoon - 25%

Between Captain America fighting himself, Bruce Banner watching in awe as Past-Hulk overzealously pummeled the Chitauri, and Iron Man and Ant-Man's mission to retrieve the Tesseract, there was a lot to love about the New York team-up.

The gut-wrenching team-up between Black Widow and Hawkeye made its mark on 28 percent of voters, and 25 percent enjoyed the God of Thunder's time with "Rabbit."

Here, again, the War Machine/Nebula mission failed to receive any votes, despite a great cameo by Peter Quill.

Who Did You Want to be Sacrificed for the Soul Stone?:

No Preference: 50%, Black Widow - 33%, Hawkeye - 18%

It had to be one of them. And half of our voters didn't have a preference which one it was. Natasha did end up getting one-third of the votes, but we're not positive whether that should be seen as an honor or a way of saying that audiences wanted her to die. We may never know.

Best Captain America Moment:

Lifting/Fighting with Mjolnir - 55%, "I could do this all day." "Yeah, I know." - 13%, Reuniting with Peggy Carter - 10%, "America's a**" - 8%, "Hail H.Y.D.R.A." - 8%, Passing the Shield to Sam - 3%

There were so many great moments for Captain America in "Endgame," including a handful of witty lines, an unusual amount of mild profanity and some moments that moviegoers have been waiting almost a decade to see. But, unquestionably, those who took our survey were beyond thrilled to see Steve Rogers lift - and fight with - Thor's trusty weapon. This was a moment that was teased all the way back in "Age of Ultron," during a scene in which it appeared that Cap slightly budged Mjolnir while attempting to pick it up. Thor exclaimed what many of us were thinking, when he uttered those glorious words, "I knew it!"

Saddest Moment:

Tony Stark's Death - 75%, Black Widow's Sacrifice - 13%, Captain America Growing Old/Retiring - 8%, Hawkeye's Family Getting Snapped - 8%

Many, including the woman absolutely bawling her eyes out one row behind us, felt that the saddest moment in "Endgame" was the sacrifice and eventual death of Tony Stark - and rightfully so. Although it was heavily assumed that one (if not multiple) major characters would meet their demise at the metaphorical hands of the Infinity War, losing Iron Man was a devastating and somewhat unexpected blow.

The rest of the votes were relatively split between the death of Natasha Romanov, the retirement of Steve Rogers and that devastating opening scene featuring the Barton family.

Favorite Moments:

For the survey, we provided a list of many of the perceived top moments from the film and asked respondents to pick their favorite three. Here are the top vote-getters, led by Iron Man uttering his most famous line and using the Infinity Stones to give Thanos and his army what they deserved.

Most Disappointing Moment:

Ant-Man Getting Saved by a Rat - 28%, N/A - There Were No Disappointing Moments - 23%, Thanos Getting Killed (the First Time) Without Putting Up a Fight - 20%, Thor's PTSD Being Used for Laughs - 18%, Stan Lee's Final Cameo - 8%, Other - 5%

While nearly a quarter of respondents felt there were no disappointing moments in the entire movie, we'd like to vent quickly about a couple (minor) grievances:

Ant-Man got saved from the Quantum Realm by a rat. Not due to his own ingenuity or by any means of intelligence. A rat literally just walked across the dashboard of his car, unknowingly pressed a button and spat Scott Lang right out. So dumb.

After waiting a whole year to see the Avengers' rematch with Thanos, watching the Mad Titan get offed - half an hour into the movie - without really raising a finger to defend himself was certainly unexpected. At least they went for the head.

Clearly, Marvel had no idea that this would be Stan Lee's final cameo, and it was always fun to see him pop up in the most random of scenarios, but we can think of probably 15 other cameos that we liked better.

Which "Snapped" Character Were You Most Happy to See Again?:

Spider-man - 53%, Doctor Strange - 23%, The Guardians of the Galaxy - 10%, Black Panther/Shuri - 5%, Bucky Barnes - 5%, Scarlet Witch - 3%, The Wasp/Hank Pym/Janet Van Dyne - 3%

People love Spider-man. Or they love Tom Holland. Possibly even both. But whatever it is that people go bananas over, it sure seemed like the resurrection of Peter Parker got the loudest cheers of the entire night when we saw "Endgame" on opening night.

Doctor Strange received a respectable 23 percent of votes, with other votes coming in for the Guardians of the Galaxy (one voter specifically mentioned Groot), the Wakandans, the Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch (one girl in our theater LOST. HER. MIND. over Wanda) and the Pym-Van Dynes.

How Much Did You Hate Thanos?:

We gave our voters a scale from 1 (liked) to 5 (loathed), and it's a bit hard to draw any definite conclusions from the results. However, after a decidedly less sympathetic showing than his appearance in "Infinity War," most voters really didn't like Thanos in "Endgame."

Who Will You Miss the Most?:

Iron Man - 53%, Captain America - 38%, Black Widow - 10%

Tony Stark wins again, followed by Steve Rogers and a 10 percent clip for Natasha Romanov.

Fat Thor:

Yay - 45%, Meh - 30%, Nay - 25%

This and the "Most Disappointing Moment" results show that body shaming isn't always the most popular use of comedy, but Fat Thor did provide a few good laughs, even for a joke that would have gone over better for about 30 minutes, not three hours. Regardless, we've never felt better about ourselves while looking at Chris Hemsworth with his shirt off. We hope he takes his mama's advice and has a salad or two before "Guardians of the Galaxy 3," though.

Smart Hulk:

Yay - 60%, Meh - 23%, Nay -18%

Bruce Banner really needed to step it up in "Endgame" after subpar showings in "Infinity War" and "Thor: Ragnarok." In the five years since the Snap, the professor learned how to balance his brains and brawn, resulting in a cardigan-clad jolly green genius. Nearly two-thirds of voters approved.

Valkyrie as "King" of Asgard:

Yay - 60%, Meh - 33%, Nay - 8%

Thor passed the reins to the hard-drinking warrior woman at the end of the movie. Sixty percent liked it and one-third could take it or leave it. Time will tell what the future holds for New Asgard under the leadership of Valkyrie.

Falcon as the New Captain America:

Yay - 40%, Meh - 30%, Nay - 30%

Speculation has been rampant for years about whether the MCU would follow the comicbook storylines where Bucky Barnes or Sam Wilson took over as Captain America. One of the final scenes in "Endgame" answered those rumors as an elderly Steve Rogers presented his iconic shield to Falcon. Of all of the Yay/Nay questions we asked, this one was easily the most divisive, nearly being split evenly between approval, disapproval and indifference. Perhaps the ramifications of this decision will come to the forefront of the upcoming Disney+ show "Falcon and Winter Soldier."

Were You Satisfied with the Ending?:

Yes - 95%, Indifferent - 5%

Our voters overwhelmingly approved of the ending of "Avengers: Endgame." Only a couple people voted "indifferent," but did not have the option to clarify why they felt that way. (We'd love to hear, if any of you are reading this.)

Who Should Be the New "Face" of the MCU?:

Captain Marvel - 28%, Spider-man - 28%, Doctor Strange - 18%, Black Panther - 10%, Falcon (Captain America) - 10%, The Guardians of the Galaxy - 5%, Other - 3%

With no more Iron Man or Captain America, the time has come for a new hero to step to the front of the line. Popular votes included Captain Marvel and Spider-man (28 percent) and Doctor Strange (18 percent). Votes also fell to Black Panther, the new Captain America and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Describe "Avengers: Endgame" in One Word:

Rate "Avengers: Endgame":

On a scale from 1 to 10 stars, none of our voters went lower than a 7, with half of all votes being cast for "9 out of 10."

An average of all 40 votes came out to a score of 8.95 out of 10 stars. On the date of publishing, "Avengers: Endgame" sat at a rating of 8.9 out of 10 stars on IMDb and an 89% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which validates everything we've known all along - that we and our voters aren't totally crazy, after all.

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Have you seen "Avengers: Endgame"? What did you think of our survey results? Have any burning questions or feedback? We'd love to hear your opinion in the comments section below, on Facebook, Twitter or any other method of modern communication. As always, thanks for reading.