Get a preview, er, clue

GSN has decided to tip their hand on Get a Clue. The network has posted an episode of the show on YouTube, in case you just can't wait until the formal premiere on January 6. I'm not sure if this is a sign of confidence in the format, a sign of foreboding about the format, or a sign of nothing in particular.

Anyway, I watched the ep and it's basically Chain Pyramid. Two teams of four take turns giving clues to each other in order, one player after another. The answers start out easy in the first round and get harder afterwards. As on Pyramid there aren't many rules on the clues. Contestants can say pretty much whatever they want and make any hand gestures they want, as long as they don't blurt out any form of the answer, which happened once in the YouTube episode.

The one exception to the chain idea is the third round, where two members of the team play a version of the Winners Circle. Only they pick point values for each answer (the higher the point value, the tougher the answer). Then in the bonus round the winning team from the front game plays another chain-guessing round, only the chain is randomized.

Got all that? In practice the show is a lot easier to follow than this summary. In fact, the game is quite lively, just like the classic Pyramid that it's knocking off. And as I've said early and often, there's nothing wrong with knocking off a game show format. See America Says and Family Feud, or 25 Words or Less and Password, or a zillion other examples.

Rob Belushi hosts gushingly, but he doesn't inflict any damage and he keeps the game moving. The set is twice as big as it needs to be, but I'm not too concerned with sets unless they're plug-ugly, and this one isn't. All in all, Get a Clue is certainly fast-paced and energetic. The show is hardly the greatest knockoff ever - that would be Pyramid itself, which knocked off Password -  but it's far from terrible.

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