ABC Rings In New Year With More Game Shows

Even though some of the major networks have not yet set their full holiday schedules, many are beginning to think about programming in 2021, and earlier this week, ABC announced a slew of premiere dates for their unscripted content, which they will once again lean heavily into as scripted content continues to be harder to produce during the pandemic. 

ABC announced that To Tell the Truth will return on Tuesday, January 26th at 8/7c. This is a new season, the show's sixth. The remake so far has ran for five seasons and 58 episodes and despite not announcing a formal pickup, the show will be back for a sixth season, despite being one of their lower rated shows. While I am not particularly a fan of the format, ABC has done a great job with it and the show is very cheap to produce. It's good to see it back.

ABC continues to further dive into game show genre with THREE new game shows as ABCs Thursday games make a return in the winter, dubbed "Winter Fun and Games". Beginning Janaury 7, first, ABC will debut the recently announced Celebrity Wheel of Fortune at 8/7c. This will be Wheel's first dive into primetime, and their shouldn't be any major changes to the show. This will likely get a very limited run, much like Celebrity Family Feud does to avoid overexposure. 

Then at 9/8c, ABC will premiere the long-awaited revival of The Chase. While this show has been in the works for a while, given that three Jeopardy! champions are acting as the chasers, the recent passing of Alex Trebek may give the show a ratings boost. I am really excited about this. Not much else about the format and top prize is known.

Finally, at 10/9c, ABC debuts The Hustler with Craig Ferguson as host. This was a game show that ABC commissioned sometime early next year and then nothing was said any further about it, but it's happening. The show follows a series of contestants who are trying to answer trivia questions, but one of them already knows all the answers. Figure out who the hustler is, you win the money. If nobody guesses right, the hustler wins the money. The preview for it looks great and it's kind of set in that "solve the mystery" style set. The show was apparently filmed back in February, and doesn't appear to include an audience (by design and not because of Covid). 

In addition, ABC still has a FULL season of The $100,000 Pyramid taped and ready to go, several episodes of Press Your Luck and Match Game left, as well episodes of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as well. 

*Side note: American Idol returns on Sunday, February 14th, a bit earlier than normal. ABC's current Sunday games should go until Idol starts.