Millionaire is Coming Back Home to ABC

Hopefully ABC has learned that overexposure of a show will bring it to its knees.

Finally, acknowledgment of the civilian contestants! Good move, ABC!

Yep, that's Cedric. I wonder if they'll acknowledge the couple of years he hosted.

I’m not sure if it would give an advantage on knowledge, but it would definitely prepare you for handling the pressure!

It'll be interesting to see a former host in the chair. I can't speak to too much, but I host a version of Super Millionaire on Twitch (thanks so much to Osswmi's Super Millionaire controller, which is far more easily configured than the old one I had), and I can say that I've actually had cases where I've had to replace questions on my show because they've been asked by hosts on other shows that were looking to appear on mine. It may give Cedric a bit of a leg up, but on actual Millionaire, their question base is so broad that I highly doubt any questions Cedric asked will be asked of him.

There’s some news about the upcoming season floating around Twitter, most of it coming from Buzzerblog:

• Celebrity contestants will include Zachary Quinto, Tiffany Haddish, David Chang, Cedric the Entertainer (who acknowledges his tenure as host) Karamo Brown, Julie Bowen, Thomas Middleditch, Rebel Wilson, Ray Romano, Joel McHale, and Amanda Peet.
• Non-celebrity contestants will also be guaranteed $32,000.
• Non-celebrity contestants will also have unfettered access to a companion for the first ten questions.

I may be a horrible person for thinking this too, but I agree. I mean, I think its great that civilian contestants will get $32,000 anyway just for appearing, especially because these folks are frontliners (although I do question what is ABC's/Embassy Row's definition of frontliners; what makes someone a frontliner? Are they frontliners out of the goodness of their hearts like volunteers or are they frontliners because its part of their job like nurses and grocery store people). However, it does absolutely kill any real suspense to be had prior to question 11. Although on the other hand, it does ensure that those folks get more money, since they'll most likely start the upper third (at question 11) with more lifelines (or perhaps every lifeline) intact. And (maybe this is just me) I think it's more exciting to watch a contestant (civilian or otherwise) tackle more difficult questions (in the upper third) anyway.

I would like to add real fast, though, that I do have my fears that ABC will overdo the whole celebrity angle a la ITV in the last couple of years of original Millionaire (with Chris). The show lost all relevance, interest, and fun when ITV/Sony/Celador/whomever decided to just have a parade of generally thick-ish celebrities play the game (minus the few logistically nonsensical and frankly disappointing episodes that were The People Play) and I'm hoping ABC will not make the same mistake. I mean, why the hesitation over having mostly or all civilian contestants (whether they be frontliners or otherwise)? ITV/Stellify has had no such qualms, even considering the current pandemic. 

P.S. I have always thought it was very nice for ABC to give the $32,000 minimum to celebrity contestants (possibly to balance their relative thickness in comparison to civilian contestants who are generally well-suited to be on the show). No such courtesies are given to British and Australian contestants. I think the Americans tackled the issue of generally dense celebrities playing the game better than those two, because if they weren't given so much slack for questions 1-10, they'd probably burn through all their lifelines by question 11 and really struggle from then on. And it's all for charity too, so that's another bonus.