Don't Forget the Singing Bee: Television Review

FOX and ABC recently launched two shows with a similar premise: how well do you know familiar song lyrics. This article compares these shows: Don't Forget the Lyrics on FOX and Singing Bee on NBC.

Fox's Don't Forget the Lyrics

Think Who Wants to Be A Millionaire but substitute singing popular song lyrics for answering inane questions and you've basically got a good idea of what Don't Forget the Lyrics is all about. In Don't Forget the Lyrics, a single contestant is given a series of challenges that involve singing missing lyrics; challenges increase in difficulty. The set even looks a lot like Millionaire and it seems like it uses the same scoreboard to go from $1,000 to $1,000,000.

For each new contestant, Don't Forget the Lyrics offers 9 different categories (for example "Rolling Stones" or "Country") to choose from, though eventually to win the million dollars, they have to answer challenges in each of the nine categories that is presented. They are given a choice of two different songs in each category. They see the lyrics on a large screen in front of them, Karaoke-style, and must sing any lyrics that are blanked out to proceed with the game. After each song challenge, they get a chance to decide whether to stop and take the money they've already won or risk it and move on to the next challenge.

Like Millionaire, each contestant gets three lifelines, in this case they call them "backups". One helps them fill in two missing words, one gives them multiple choice options for missing words, and the last backup allows a family member or friend to sing the missing line of lyrics for them.

ABC's Singing Bee

In ABC's version of the show, 6 contestant are randomly selected from the audience. In round one, contestants are given name, performer and year of a song and a portion of the song is performed by one of a variety of singers and displayed on a Karaoke screen. The contestant must sing the next line when the professional singer stops singing and the lyrics disappear. This round narrows the field to 4 contestants.