After two seasons shot during the pandemic, there is a studio audience for the first time for the current iteration of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and host Jimmy Kimmel seems to be excited about that. The show still has celebrity contestants, who play for various charities. Will an audience make the show even close to the event it once was when it debuted in the US 25 (!) years ago?
Opening Shot: Jimmy Kimmel enters the set of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and the audience cheers. This is a big deal because this is the first season he’s hosted the show with a studio audience.
The Gist: The contestants during this season of the show are still celebrities, but this time, they’ll play in pairs, each looking to win money for different charities. In the first episode, for instance, longtime friends John Mulaney and Nick Kroll are in the hot seat, then Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell play.
The rules are the same as usual: The Classic Millionaire ladder of 15 questions, ranging from $100 all the way up to $1 million, with landing points at $1,000 and $32,000; there, the contestants will go home with at least those amounts, though in the celebrity rounds, the contestants get a lot of help to get up to the minimum $32k that they get for their charities. Lifelines are 50:50, Phone A Friend, Ask The Audience, and Ask The Host; much to Kimmel’s dismay, the last one is a carryover from the pandemic seasons, when there was no audience.
Episode 2 will feature the pairings of Rosie O’Donnell and Lisa Ann Walter, plus Sebastian Maniscalco and Omar J. Dorsey. Episode 3 features Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata, plus John Stamos and Dave Coulier.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? This version of Millionaire pays tribute to the original US version that aired on the 25th anniversary of its debut on ABC, with Regis Philbin as host. The show even has John Carpenter, the show’s first million dollar winner, in the audience (and he looks great, but definitely 25 years older, which made us feel pretty ancient).
Our Take: We’re not 100 percent sure why this iteration of Millionaire, produced by the show’s original producer, Michael Davies, along with Kimmel, refuses to bring on civilian contestants. The show is much more exciting when someone is going after a life-changing amount of money and decides whether to risk that money or not on a question where they may only have partial confidence in their answer.
That’s not what we get with celebrities playing. There’s a lot of goofing around, which is entertaining, but the stakes are low. Yes, they feel some pressure during the last five questions, but they know they’re going back to their charities with at least $32,000 and they’re more inclined to take a risk on a final-five question because it’s not their money that they’re risking.
That being said, the idea of having the celebrities in pairs, and having most of them be comedians, helps the show’s entertainment value. Mulaney and Kroll were hilarious during their time in the hot seat, goofing with Kimmel and just making lots of offhand jokes about the questions and answers. Kenan and Kel of course have 25 years of comedic chemistry to work with, and the fact that they overthought the answers to even the easiest questions was maddeningly funny.
An especially funny moment was when Mulaney and Kroll called on their Phone A Friend: Jon Stewart. Stewart, of course, joked around but also took his role seriously. But his reaction after the pair fed him the question was priceless.
Sex and Skin: None. Millionaire has always been a family-friendly show.
Parting Shot: Somehow, the episode manages to end at the end of a round. Wonder if there will be carryovers of contestants from episode to episode.
Sleeper Star: The audience really does help the show feel more exciting, even with the celebrity contestants without much on the line participating.
Most Pilot-y Line: The way Kimmel helped Kenan and Kel on the very first question was funny, but it was also an obvious indicator that the first ten questions in each round mean absolutely nothing.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire has done a good job picking celebrity guests for this new season, and pairing them up makes the show more entertaining. We just wish Davies and Kimmel had the stones to actually bring in civilian contestants again.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.