Accidental Innuendo: In a GSN episode, the first part of a word near the bottom was "Cock". The first letter of the second word was "S". Then the second letter was "U". Everyone was laughing about it and trying to avoid saying what it looked like. (The word was "Sure".) See for yourself.
Adaptation Displacement: Although it was rerun heavily, the NBC version's lone season was eclipsed by the five-season run of the USA version. In turn, the large gap between the Emmons/Edwards' run and the first Lane version added a degree of displacement to the latter. Despite only lasting two seasons, GSN reran the first Lane version HEAVILY, making it much fresher in people's minds. It got to the point where a 2021 ad promoted reruns of Lane's first two seasons as "the original", completely ignoring the previous ones!
Never mind that GSN had previously rerun the NBC and USA versions itself.
The Dylan Lane version itself proved more popular than the later 2015 version with Mike Catherwood, so much so that when they re-booted it again in 2021, they modeled it after the earlier version and brought Lane back to host.
During the unaired pilot, after guest star Joyce Bulifant couldn't get the word "Pyramid", Cullen remarked "Well, the nighttime version'sbeen canceled." The daytime version would suffer the same fate after a mere 6-month run, being canceled on the same day as Chain.
And, they recycled a music cue from one of Fred Silverman's notorious NBC flops, Supertrain (the theme of which also incorporated a portion of what would later become the Chain Reaction theme). Silverman canceled this show (and both High Rollers and The Hollywood Squares) 6 months later to make room for David Letterman's daytime talk show.
Questionable Casting: After one of the 2006 pilots surfaced online, many game show fans felt Tim Vincent would have been a much better choice than Dylan Lane. Some had the same reaction when GSN announced Lane would be back for the 2021 go-round, but reception to him was far more positive the second time out.
Blake Emmons was derided for fake excitement and inability to remember the rules. Thankfully, his tenure was short-lived and he was replaced by the more experienced Geoff Edwards.
Dylan Lane was seen by many as overly smarmy on the first incarnation of the GSN version. (Although to be fair, unaired pilot host Tim Vincent had plenty of smarm to go around too. In the circulating pilot, he says "If you play your cards right, you could walk out of here with over $25,000". They cut out the second part of his sentence, "but let's be honest, that's not likely going to happen".) It is likely due to Lane's reputation that the second GSN version replaced him with Mike Catherwood. While Lane did return to host again in 2021, reception has been far more positive to his hosting this time around. Notably, Lane seems far more relaxed and natural in the later version.
By the time of the 2015 incarnation of the show, Dylan Lane's early 2000s fashion and personality became part of the charm of the show, prompting the audience to see Mike Catherwood as a Replacement Scrappy to Lane.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The first GSN version. All episodes were battle of the sexes and they added a betting round with bets capped at $500. Many contestants would piss away their winnings with boneheaded guesses. For Season 2, the bonus was altered to use similar staging to Go and stop the clock for each guess; each word was worth $100, and getting five in 60 seconds won $5,000.
Many fans felt the pilots were far better. Tim Vincent's hosting style gelled better with the fandom, plus the teams were Hot Potato-style groups rather than gender-based, and each team started with banks of $1,000 to facilitate two betting rounds, both of which actually went well in the circulating pilot. The later 2021 revival would end up using the Hot Potato style groups from these pilots.
Many fans of the original and the USA versions were none too pleased with the GSN revivals' tinkering of the format. Reason being, the first two series built the chains around words that related to each other in both upward and downward directions (say CORK-CHAMPAGNE-BUBBLES). The GSN versions, however, had chains that could only be read downward using two-word phrases (say DINNER-PARTY-PLANNER).
Win Back the Crowd: Many fans agree that a fifteen-year gap did wonders for the quality of Dylan Lane's hosting.
Magnificent Bastard: Paul Shannon is an enigmatic man and the seeming head of the hydrogen project at the University of Chicago. In truth a government agent, likely CIA, Paul effortlessly manipulates the hero Eddie Kasalivich into trusting him and guides the pieces into place so he might gain knowledge of a deceased genius scientist's inventions. Disdaining the brutal methods of his monstrous associate Lyman Earl Collier, Paul is revealed to be manipulating Lyman as well, "retiring" him before allowing for the heroes to escape while getting away free and clear himself.
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