The Weakest Link

Eight contestants (six in the syndicated) compete to win a top amount by playing a quiz/elimination contest. At the end of each round, each player is voted off as The Weakest Link.

Broadcast
NBC 04/16/01 - 07/14/02 Syndicated 07/07/02 - 05/20/03

Packagers
The Gurin Company/Laurelwood Entertainment/BBC/NBC Productions

Hosts
Anne Robinson 2001-2002 George Gray 2002-2003

Announcers
John Cramer (NBC) Lisa Friedman (Syndication)

Gameplay
In each round, the team’s goal is to reach the target of the maximum value within the time limit. They do that by answering a series of questions correctly posed by the host. The players on the team played one at a time from left to right. In the first round the player in the 1st position (as opposed to the player whose name is first alphabetically in the original British version) went first, then after that the “Strongest Link” (the player who answer the most right) from the previous round went first in the next round. Not only that, the time was reduced in each new round. Also in each round, there was a money chain, on the chain was ascending money amounts leading up to the target amount. So the fastest way to get to the target was to create a chain of a certain number of correct answers. As soon as a player missed a question, the chain was broken, and all the money from the chain was lost. However, as the beginning of each new turn, a player in control can bank the value of the previous question by saying the word “bank” before his/her question was asked, when that happened, that money was put into the bank, but the chain had to be reset.

Money Chains
The bank's target value was the maximum amount of money that a team could accumulate in any one round, and if a team reached the target and banked it while already having money in the bank (a rare occurrence), the bank would be augmented to the target value instead of having the target value added to the bank. The number of money amounts/consecutive correct answers needed was determined by how many players were originally on the team.

NBC
 * $125,000
 * $75,000
 * $50,000
 * $25,000
 * $10,000
 * $5,000
 * $2,500
 * $1,000

Teams tried to build up a total of up to $1,000,000

Syndication
 * $12,500 (doubled to $25,000 in Season 2)
 * $5,000
 * $2,500
 * $1,000
 * $500
 * $250

Teams tried to build up a total of up to $75,000 in season one, and up to $100,000 in season two.

Time Limits
On NBC, the first round lasted for 2½ minutes (2:30), and decreased by 10 seconds for each new round.

In syndication, the first round lasted for 1¼ minutes (1:45), and decreased by 15 seconds for each new round.

Voting Off the Weakest Link
Any money that has been banked by the team when the time was up was carried over into the next round, giving the team a chance to add more to the bank. However, one player will not advance to the next round, for at the end of each round, all the players on the team written down their votes on their telestrators as to who they thought was the “Weakest Link”. While they were writing, the announcer told the home viewer who was statistically the “Strongest Link/Strongest Player”, and who was the “Weakest Link/Worst Player”. Then the votes were revealed, and the player with the most votes was eliminated from the game. In case of a tie, the “Strongest Link” cast the deciding vote. In between the reveal & the elimination, the host would talk to some of the players & ask why did he/she vote off the player with the most votes. After the elimination, the eliminated player would do a post-show commentary of what happened.

NOTE: Should the “Strongest Link” from the last round be voted off, then the 2nd strongest started the next round.

Double Round
In the NBC & season one syndicated versions, when there were two players left, the final regular question round was the double round. For any money banked by the two players was then doubled and added to the pot. So the target for this round on NBC was $250,000, while the target for syndicated season one was $25,000. When the target was doubled to $25,000 in syndicated season two, the double round was removed, and after the vote off the remaining two players went straight into the final round.

Final Round
In the final round, the two remaining players played a showdown for all the money in the bank. To start, the “Strongest Link” from the last round (or, in the second syndicated season, the second-strongest if that player had been voted off) decided if he/she should go first or let his/her opponent go first. Then the players took turns answering their own questions. Each player gets up to five questions (three in syndication), and the player with the most correct answers won the game. If there was a tie after everybody was asked off all questions, the game shifted into a sudden death playoff. Questions will continue in pairs (they still alternated turns answering questions), and the one player who can manage to answer his/her question correctly when his/her opponent could not answer his/hers, won the game.

The winner of the game got to keep all the money in the bank, while the loser & 5 or 6 others would leave with nothing.

Records
The highest amount won on the prime time version was $189,500, won on the Tournament of Losers special (this is also the highest amount of money ever won on The Weakest Link worldwide. The lowest won was $22,500, on the Fear Factor Champions special. The lowest amount won on the daytime version was $1,000, while the highest was $53,000. The highest amount won on a Celebrity Edition of the show was when LeVar Burton won a "Star Trek Stars" edition with a pot of $167,500.

Spin-Offs
Dirty Rotten Cheater - Uses the same format except this time, one player has all the answers given to them. The pilot entitled "Cheaters" used the Weakest Link set.

Inventor
Based on the show of the same name in the United Kingdom by Fintan Coyle and Cathy Dunning

Links
Chris Lambert's Weakest Link Page David's Weakest Link Page Rules for the Weakest Link Weakest Link Fan Site The Weakest Link @ Tim's TV Showcase