Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Lingo’ On CBS, Where RuPaul Hosts A Revival Of The Wordle-like Game Show

Lingo‘s history dates back to 1987, with the most famous version likely being the one that aired from 2002-2007 on GSN with Chuck Woolery as host. One of the big differences between this version and those old ones was that in the old versions, players picked the letters from a bin of balls then tried to place them on the board. Here, it’s a straight word guess, a la Wordle. Oh, and there’s a whole lot more money at stake now. And the host is now RuPaul.

LINGO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: RuPaul walks onto a colorful stage and welcomes the audience to Lingo, “where if you say all the right things, you can win some serious moolah, darling.”

The Gist: For most people, Lingo will be a new game, though previous versions of this format have aired on GSN and even now a version airs in the UK. Two pairs of players play a number of rounds of the game to build a bank. The winner of that face-off goes to the final showdown round against the winner of the second game.

In the first round, the teams try to guess five-letter words, with the first letter revealed. A square goes green if a letter is guessed that’s in the right spot; it goes yellow if a letter is guessed that’s in the word but in the wrong spot. Yes, it’s basically Wordle. The more guesses it takes, the smaller the amount of money available is, and if the team runs out of guesses or uses an illegal word, the other team can steal.

In the second round, each team gets a ten-letter word and a clue, the more letters that are filled in before the team guesses, the less money they can bank. Ru summons his “Lucky Balls,” where each team can choose a ball that gives them a free letter or a ball that has them playing for extra money. Then there’s a face-off round: One team member on each team takes 5-letter words and the other takes 6-letter words, with dollar values doubled, but if no new green letters are guessed, the player gives up control of the board. Then a final ten-letter face-off word determines the team going to the final.

During the final face-off, teams have two minutes to guess 5-letter words, which are worth 5 points, and 6-letter words, which are worth 10 points. The winner of that round gets both teams’ banks plus $50,000.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? See the top of the post re: the previous runs of Lingo.

Our Take: When you propose a game where people are just standing at podiums trying to guess and spell a mystery word, you need to do a few things to keep the momentum from flagging immediately. RuPaul is not only the host of this version (shot on the set of the UK revival) but is an executive producer, as well, and he brings a ton of life to the format, in a way that basically only RuPaul can do.

For instance, even when he’s reciting the rules in the first game, he does it with asides and exclamations that make that dryness go down easier. He isn’t shy about the single entendres he uses when talking about his “Lucky Balls.” He’s natural with the contestants in the few chances he gets to banter with them.

From what our friends at BuzzerBlog have told us, this version is a bit pared down from the UK version, with less variety of games and word lengths. But, given we haven’t seen that version, we’re OK with this version’s pacing. We’ve watched too many recent primetime game shows where the pacing is glacial at best (like The Wheel). Ru keeps things moving, and there are no artificial pauses to build drama. That being said, things can get repetitive because it’s just people spelling their word guesses. But it could have been a whole lot worse than it is, which is lively and fun to watch, for the most part.

Sex and Skin: The amount of money people can win is sexy. Does that count?

Parting Shot: Ru has both of the final teams come center stage after the bonus game is over.

Sleeper Star: One of the contestants, Rachelle, was a word-guessing machine. Her father Reginald wasn’t far behind.

Most Pilot-y Line: Ru comes out of a commercial break saying “Welcome back to Lingo, the show where you don’t have to wait 24 hours for your next word, baby, ’cause I want my words now.” A not-so-subtle dig at Wordle, perhaps?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Lingo will draw you in if you’re keen on word guessing games, but you’ll likely stay because of RuPaul.

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.