Alec BaldwinPhoto: ABC/Jeff Neira
We should make it clear at the top that the Alec Baldwin-hosted iteration of long-running panel show Match Game hadn’t been an active venture on ABC for at least a year at this point; The series hadn’t filmed any new episodes since 2020, and the few episodes that aired in 2021 were holdovers from that earlier series. That being said, what’s a less shocking cancellation on all TV news than hearing this weekend that the network won’t be continuing another season of the Baldwin-led show?
Match Game is one of a handful of the network’s game shows to get the ax yesterday, according to Variety, along with the Joel McHale-hosted Card Sharks reboot, Celebrity Dating Game and The Hustler, the quiz/bluff game hosted by Craig Ferguson. But apparently none of those shows carried the baggage Match Game has operated under for the past six months, after Baldwin was involved in a gun incident on the set of the low-budget western Rust that ended in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins .
Alec Baldwin will probably work in Hollywood again at some point. But it won’t be the gleeful host of a largely ad-libbed comedy show where celebrities try to say funny or outrageous things, because Jesus Christ, can you even imagine that?
Like most networks, ABC tends to shift its summer programming to game shows — nice, cheap, uncontroversial game shows. Card Sharks, for example, was revived in June 2019 with McHale as the host. Celebrity Dating Game, on the other hand, only aired a single season and is feeling very Is It Cake? since it sounds so much like one of those fake shows from Baldwin’s 30 Rock. For those who haven’t been watching, Zooey Deschanel and Michael Bolton team up to get famous people to pretend they’re dating regular jerks, then who’s to guess who the famous is? Bolton sometimes parodies songs to give people clues? You did 8 episodes? What the hell?
Variety notes it wasn’t all cancellation messages; Celebrity Family Feud, Press Your Luck and The $100,000 Pyramid are all expected to return for new seasons.