by Emily Shimp

Created on: April 29, 2009

It has been almost ten years since Who Wants to be a Millionaire debuted on ABC. It ended up being a major hit, as millions of people tuned in to see contestants attempt to win a million dollars. The question "is that your final answer?" quickly became a national catchphrase, and after a couple of trial runs, ABC brought the series back in 2000 as a thrice (sometimes more) weekly series. Audiences still watched the show in droves, but the overexposure proved to be its undoing in the end, as people became bored with it and it lost valuable ratings, ultimately being canceled in favor of a syndicated version in 2002.

Now it has been announced that ABC is briefly bringing the show back on the air in August for a two-week run, in honor of its 10th anniversary. This version, which will again be hosted by Regis Philbin, will contain a mix of features from both the original network and the syndicated version. Will it become a hit all over again, or will it be largely ignored? Moreover, is the return of Millionaire to network TV a good thing?

The original series was full of drama and suspense, with people often taking a while on the harder questions. Sometimes they would luck out and win the million dollars, sometimes they would get a question wrong and fall back to a certain amount of cash, and sometimes they would simply choose to walk away with their earnings. The latter is always a wise choice if one's lifelines were gone and he or she was unsure of the answer. Regis' personality often shone through in each episode, and there were even themed shows like the celebrity edition that were a nice change of pace.

One could say that Millionaire started a trend in bringing game shows back to primetime television. Many such shows have since come and gone, Deal or No Deal being a notable exception as of 2009. Now, competition on TV is limited mainly to reality shows such as American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, which may be somewhat overexposed themselves, but at least have limited themselves to airing one (in Idol's case) or two (in Dancing's scenario) seasons per year.

Is bringing Millionaire back to ABC a good thing? It is if the new format ends up working well and if the suspense is of similar, if not greater, levels to the original. Drama of that nature can keep viewers tuning in each time to see whether or not someone will actually win that million dollar jackpot. Being similar to a format from ten years ago will give the series a strong, nostalgic feel, and will be

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