Is anyone else excited this is finally back?
I love this show. I didn't watch it back when it originally aired, I was too young then to follow game shows, but I've since seen every old episode of the US version that's on YouTube and also watched some episodes of the UK show.
It's one of the best game formats ever put together, so simple and straightforward of a concept but with room for genuine strategy and drama in how it plays out. I wished for years that it would be revived some day, and now it has!
Jane Lynch was a good choice for the new host, though no one else will be as good as Anne Robinson. There are some tweaks to the game arrangement in the new episodes. The money amount that can be won in a round now changes as the game goes on, but that doesn't affect the gameplay itself it still has the classic format.
A change that I like is having the banter between contestants now take place before the vote reveal. It was awkward in the old show doing it when you already know who's leaving. This works much better.
A change I really don't like is no longer having a final round of questions to build the bank with the last two players; now the final elimination leads right to the faceoff round. That significantly changes the endgame dynamic. Before, when the last two players did one more round to add to the prize money, the contestants had to make a strategic decision in the final vote of whether they were going to vote out the weakest link to have the best chance to add more money or try to vote out the stronger competition thinking ahead to the faceoff. Now that the final vote only decides who goes to play for the prize money there's no reason they would ever vote for the weakest link, breaking the premise of the show at the culmination of the episode.
