GSN Revives “Chain Reaction”

Well, here’s some interesting game show news for today: GSN is planning to revive its version of Chain Reaction. Forty episodes have been scheduled to air for the first season of the 2015 revival later this year. Sony Pictures Television will produced the new series of episodes and Vincent Rubino (The Newlywed Game, Million Dollar Password) will be the show’s executive producer. Chain Reaction is a word-association game show that has two teams racing to complete a series of word chains where each word is related to the word above and/or beneath it for thousands of dollars in cash. Since the show’s premiere on NBC in 1980 with host Bill Cullen, Chain Reaction has been revived twice in 1986 (aired on USA Network/Global Network in Canada) and in 2006 by GSN. 

Like GSN’s decision to revive Baggage, although this news did surprise me a bit, this is another show I don’t mind the network reviving. Michael Davies did a great job with the first GSN revival by keeping the gameplay essentially the same while making a few format changes where needed including adding the Speed Chains after the first, second and third rounds and the Betting Round to close each main game. It’s going to be interesting to see what Sony will have in mind for the show. (I hope it doesn’t wind up like Zoo Production’s failed rendition of Lingo). 

Fun Fact: The 1983 NBC game show Go, produced by Bob Stewart, was based on the same concept used in the bonus round on Chain Reaction, which was also created by Stewart.  

Source: TV By The Numbers