Osmond Pyramid coming to GSN

Word is out now that, Pyramid, the Donny Osmond hosted revival that ran from 2002-04, is coming to GSN. Mixed thoughts from me on this. Part of me is pretty disappointed that it's not a Clark era version, and it's been too long since $20,000 or $25,000 Pyramid has aired on GSN, or seasons one and three of $100,000 Pyramid, and I'd much rather see one of those eras. And since they seem to be cutting costs these days, I'm actually surprised that they just didn't pick up a Clark season since they have many episodes of $20,000, $25,000 and $100,000 to air on a regular basis already in their library; this is assuming if GSN had to first acquire the rights to the Osmond version, and then second, convert all of the episodes to the tape format that they use. Airing shows they already possess seems cheaper to me. I also don't like that it's replacing Russian Roulette.

However, there is the part of me that is happy since it's Pyramid, my favorite game show ever, and some form of it is coming back to GSN. And it could be worse, they could have gotten the John Davidson version. That version had a lousy host, and for the most part felt it just pretty awkward to me in general -- save some of the celebs, and there weren't that many episodes. The rerun abuse I think would be even more painful with that version if it ever came to that point.

There are things I liked about this version and things that I hated. I loved seeing a lot of the celebrities that appeared... Hal Sparks, Vicki Lawrence, Melissa Peterman, Marc Summers, Betty White, and Dick Clark, the master of the game himself... (if you see this show listed in my video collection, that's pretty much why I have so many episodes). I also thought Donny Osmond was a great host. Talk about down to earth, friendly, and he certainly knew the rules of the game. But then there are the pet peeves that at some points made this revival hard to watch. The 6 phrase-20 second format in the main game in my eyes really made the show seem rather rushed, and then there are the anal judgment calls in the winner's circle, where a player has to pretty much say the whole category word for word in order to get it right.

Another good thing: the moron I am finally just figured out what the hell Donnymid means (Donny + Pyramid = Donnymid).