RANKED: 'To Tell The Truth' best incarnations of the game show

6. 2016 - Present (Host: Anthony Anderson)

Black-ish star and comedian Anthony Anderson is the most recent host of the cross-examination game show. To Tell The Truth is just one of the shows ABC has brought back as part of their contribution to the recent retro game show revivals trend. However, although it has made it to season three, which is technically better than three previous incarnations of the show, this version is ranked at the bottom of the list. There are several reasons why this is the case.

First of all, for the most part, the introduction of each group of challengers does not even begin with To Tell The Truth's signature phrase, "What is your name please?" Instead, Anderson just asks each challenger to introduce themselves, to which they respond with the main claim to fame and not a common name shared by the three people. Adding on to that, the four celebrity panelists don't even receive a copy of an affidavit but must instead completely listen to Anderson reading the real person's story.

The next fault of the newest incarnation is the questioning system. This might have to do with how the show is edited together, but each celebrity is not given an individual period of time to ask questions. Instead, it's a free for all when the celebrities ask questions. This way of gameplay is not fair for the viewer because we don't get to see every panelist ask an equal amount of questions or have an equal amount of time to ask questions. From the way the questioning segments air, it seems like the celebrities may have equal time, but only the best questions are chosen and edited into one 'question package.'

The most important disappointment of the current To Tell The Truth run is that no money is given away. Each challenger most likely gets money for appearing on the show, but the point of the game, since the show debuted in 1956, was to award the challengers a cash prize based on how many incorrect votes the panel guesses. That's not the case anymore. The number of votes each challenger receives, essentially, has no effect on any potential winnings the civilians will receive.

The overall game on this version is focused on the panelists. The hour-long episodes feature a number of challenger groups. Every time a celebrity votes correctly, they score a point. At the end of the episode, the celebrity with the least number of points loses. The loser in season one and part of season two had to then "Tweet a lie," meaning they had to tweet on their personal Twitter accounts a false statement about themselves, and the celebrity couldn't deny it for 24 hours. During part of season two, instead of "Tweet a Lie," the loser was the subject of a fake news story that Anthony Anderson would read.

What's really the point of calling this version a game show when the contestants are not competing to earn any money? The game is essentially focused on finding out which celebrity is a bad guesser, and that's it. Sadly, just like many game shows of today, the game itself is a second thought, and the comedy aspect attached to the show is most important.