ABC Sets Premiere Dates for a Slew of Game Shows

It became clear that almost every network was going to have to make changes to their upcoming fall schedule due to COVID-19 as many scripted shows have just returned to production or haven't returned at all yet. Most of the networks have getting "backup" content ready. ABC's Sunday Fun and Games trio has been in re-run for quite some time now and it was clear they were holding the episodes for a fall run. Sure enough, that is the case.

In a press release today, ABC announced that their Sunday Fun and Games lineup of Celebrity Family Feud, Press Your Luck and Match Game will move to Thursdays and will return on September 24th. It was long expected that Thursday's was going to be the home for these shows and now ABC has them back on the schedule to continue their seasons. Press Your Luck has eight episodes remaining. It's unclear how many episodes are remaining of the Feud and Match Game, but it is at least five.

As for Sundays, ABC announced that Card Sharks (one of the first shows to tape after the shutdowns ended) will join the Sunday night lineup. This gives ABC a Sunday lineup of Supermarket Sweep, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Card Sharks. Their respective seasons will begin a little bit later on October 18th.

We do know that Millionaire's format will remain unchanged and it will be a mix of both celebrity contestants and front-line workers. Supermarket Sweep will apparently have two main games and then one big bonus sweep, with a top prize of potentially $100,000.

What remains to be season will be if any of the shows actually finish their season. ABC announced that they expect most of their scripted content to be ready by November. This would mean that most filler shows would likely still have episodes left. Sweep and Millionaire were originally scheduled for Sundays so they will air their full seasons, but the rest of the shows could either get moved again to fill more gaps or have the remaining episodes left in the can for either next season or filler content in 2021. 

ABC has also yet to schedule $100,000 Pyramid, which should be back in production any day, and The Chase, which is currently behind as they have not been able to secure the chasers yet. 

So clearly lots going on and it will be interesting to see if shows get shuffled around again. Unlike NBC (which pushed some shows to 2021), ABC plans to air all of their original Fall scripted content later this year.