If one of your fellow contestants looks like J. Lo with glasses and a big fake mustache, you’re right to be suspicious. The ladies from Hustlers would make a mint playing ABC’s newest game show The Hustler. Hosted by Craig Ferguson, the series reportedly “breaks the game show mold by featuring one player who secretly knows the answers.†So they obviously have a much easier time winning, right? “Don’t be fooled,†the network says in The Hustler’s press release Monday. “Just because they have a leg up doesn’t mean they’ll be taking home the prize.†Which leaves us with just one question: what does that mean?
In case you immediately pictured a super-confusing Homonym!-type comedy of errors like we did, ABC describes the game more in-depth: five contestants must work together to answer trivia questions and accrue a collective prize. One of them, the “Hustler,†must hide their identity and anonymously eliminate two fellow contestants, narrowing the pool of possible Hustlers. Once only two contestants and the Hustler are left, the trio must decide who amongst them is the Hustler. If the two non-Hustlers correctly pick the Hustler, the trio splits the prize. If they fail, the Hustler takes home every cent. Will this game actually make sense in practice, or will we all be scammed out of our precious, precious TV watching time? Looks like we’ll have to wait to find out. Production on The Hustler begins this fall.