The Lyrics Don't Have to Be Forgotten About

With FOX's revival of Don't Forget the Lyrics approaching the season finale, I thought it would be a good time to give a little review of the revival. 

Overall, the show has very little changes from the original Wayne Brady fronted version. 10 songs, one million dollars. The number of lyrics you have to fill in increases as the game goes on. The biggest change is the "back-ups". There are only two backups, the backup singer and three words. The three words can be used all at once or broken up throughout the game. This is different from the original when it was 'two words" and they both had to be used at the same time. The "three lines" backup did not return.

The money ladder is also a little different as you get towards the top, with $250,000 for the 9th song instead of $500,000. $25,000 is also still a guaranteed level. Based on how it was formatted, it looked like FOX wanted the show to be a little easier, but thus made the payments towards the top-less rewarding. Personally, I like the backup "three words" that can be spread out across the entire. I think that was a good change.

Nicey Nash is okay as host. Nothing spectacular but nothing really bad either. The show did tape during the pandemic, so while there is a small socially distanced audience, Nicey does keep a bit of distance from the contestants. 

Overall, the show is a fine revival. I believe the original version was probably a little better and Wayne Brady was definitely a superior host. The show's ratings haven't been spectacular but I think they should be enough to give it a second season, especially if FOX wants to continue to pair it with veteran Beat Shazam as part of their Million Dollar Music Mondays. 

The season has averaged an 0.31 with 1.8 million viewers. The twelve episode run will conclude on Monday September 12th.