When its sixth season hits the 2026 TV schedule in full, Fox’s hit game show The Floor is once again leaning into the theme of “Champions” with its contestant pool. Everyone competing for the grand prize has, in one way or another, already won big elsewhere in life, from writing contest winners to decorated athletes to pageant winners and beyond. To me, that’s a more interesting twist than sorting people by state or other more arbitrary details, and Rob Lowe has me thinking it’ll fix my biggest gripe.

Lowe, who transitioned into hosting The Floor when 9-1-1: Lone Star was canceled, talked to TV Insider about how having a floor full of victors affected the general dynamics that fans are used to. And he shared that having a higher caliber of competitors means there won’t be nearly as many one-sided duels that quickly fizzle out. As he put it:

Yes! This! It's exactly what I wanted to hear, as contestant flameouts, exciting though they may be, are the worst. Obviously those situations are the most terrible for the players themselves, and I empathize with them. But it's also quite non-ideal for viewers.

Here's my least favorite The Floor scenario. Week 1 reveals a contestant on a category I absolutely adore, such as Best Horror Movies Ever or Cartoon Characters. (Mature Topics and Hobbies Rich People Have are sadly not in my wheelhouse.) Then, after weeks and weeks go by, those contestants are finally chosen, but whoever they're going up against has seemingly done zero studying on the topic, and immediately soils the sheets without correctly identifying anything.

So the thing I was genuinely most excited to see from the entire season is over in less than a minute, with only two or three examples being utilized. That's the worst. Especially if the images/videos aren't even that difficult to identify to begin with.

As such, I couldn't be happier to hear that Season 6 of The Floor will authentically feature fewer flameouts than past seasons. I hope that also means there will be fewer cases where contestants say "Pass" and then forget that it's still their turn to guess. That's my second biggest gripe about the show.

Another one of The Floor's contestant-related issues that we've discussed in the past involves players who intentionally want to stay on the floor and compete as few times as possible before the finale. Rob Lowe says the newest advantage for three-duel winners, the Power Shot, was specifically implemented to target the most skittish players. As he put it:

I gotta say, the fact that The Floor keeps adding new elements and twists, and without getting rid of what already works, is a great way to keep the competition feeling fresh even beyond the category changes. (And it'll probably keep happening, since The Floor will likely be on for years to come.) I think some other game shows should take note. Not that Jeopardy! needs to add a bunch of tweaks to its format, and I guess Wheel of Fortune did add its new opening round to change things up. But there are plenty of others out there doing the same ol', same ol'.

The first episode of Season 6 is technically already available to stream via Hulu subscription, as Fox aired a sneak peek prior to the official premiere week. So anyone who didn’t catch it should get on that immediately!

I randomly came across The Floor in 2024 and thought I should watch it. It wasn’t a game show that I ever expected to become part of my TV routine. As of 2026, I have seen every season of The Floor and look forward to it every year.

In April 2026, The Floor debuted its fifth season. It returns with a few chances but ultimately stays true to its initial essence. While smiling at this charming show, I started to think how glad I was that it made it to Season 5. I also know this won’t be its last because it’s popular enough to have many more seasons. I never saw its popularity coming.

The Floor Continues To Be A Fun Trivia Show That's Slightly Different

I love trivia TV shows. I like to play along and learn something new from them. Many shows have a straightforward format that involves answering general knowledge questions. The Floor is slightly different because you have to name things based on photos. It’s a memory and knowledge test. The Fox series is also a little easier than many game shows because you just have to become an expert on one category. Many of the best TV game shows are harder because you generally have to study a bunch of different categories and topics, and hope that something you studied becomes a question.

The complicated part of The Floor is trying to answer questions in other people’s categories. Therefore, you should try to know a little bit about everything. Nonetheless, your knowledge base doesn’t have to be as broad as contestants on other trivia TV shows. I like the specificity of The Floor categories.

The show has maintained the ridiculousness of some of the categories, but they have gotten even more specific and random.

I Am Always Amazed By The Random Categories

The first couple of seasons used more standard trivia categories. Things such as movies, basketball, and pets were picked. These are generic enough to allow many options, but also something that someone has to know well enough to outperform others. The Floor naming game always gradually increases difficulty. By Season 5, the categories have become broader. For example, pool party, handbags, seafood, and Lord of the Rings are just a few of the categories used this year.

The Lord of the Rings, in particular, is a very narrow topic, but with plenty of category options. An expert in this topic would have to know a lot about the books, movies, and the many popular characters to win that category. I love the idea that by the time The Floor reaches Season 20, there will be even more specific and fun questions, like TV shows starring Rob Lowe or something in that realm.

I am also someone who has a lot of very specific interests that I know a lot about, but would never expect them to become part of a trivia category. For example, I would pick topics such as Marvel movies, Beauty and the Beast, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, WB shows of the late 90s and early 2000s, and so many other random categories.

I love that The Floor may allow me to show off my random niche expertise. Not many other trivia game shows blend geekdom, not just pop culture-related, and any hobbies or passions trivia perfectly.

The Floor Builds Suspense That Makes Me Tune In Weekly

TV shows such as The Floor and Netflix’s What’s in the Box? realized the appeal of investing in contestants on TV game shows. TV shows like Jeopardy! prove that viewers enjoy rooting for trivia buffs. Many TV game show fans have iconic moments that they remember because they became invested in someone's winning journey. I remember when John Carpenter won Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? so well because it was exciting to watch his entire journey to that moment on the show.

You invest more in these contestants when you watch them play over multiple episodes. Therefore, The Floor makes you care who wins or loses. It’s an unpredictable game with a lot of contestants, so it doesn’t work in the same way a reality TV show works. These producers don’t have multiple episodes to create heroes and villains.

However, that can still happen naturally. We may only meet a player for an episode or two, but they create enough of an impression for viewers to know which contestants they want to see win or lose The Floor. Sometimes, The Floor ends an episode on a cliffhanger.

Someone will select a person, and we have to wait to see the outcome of their duel. Other episodes end with a contestant trying to decide whether they want to stay and compete or return to the floor. These cliffhangers work because sometimes we learn the relationship of the contestants, and that builds the anticipation. Sometimes a contestant has been playing well, and you want to know if that strike continues.

Also, the decision to stay or play matters because this can hurt someone’s chances of longevity on The Floor.

Rob Lowe Is Extremely Charming On It

I have seen Rob Lowe in many TV shows and movies. He’s already charming on-screen in his many roles, but his natural goofy charm really shines through on The Floor. I think some people underestimate how hard it is to be a great game show host. Actors are good at many things, but that doesn’t mean they are naturally great hosts. I have witnessed many actors try hosting and struggle to bring the hosting charm.

Lowe doesn’t struggle with this at all. In fact, it almost feels like he should have been hosting his entire career. He’s so good at it. The Floor is a better show because the producers knew to get him as the host. Whatever the Rob Lowe fandom is called, add me to it. He has won me over from The Floor.

The TV Show Evolves In Useful Ways That Show The Developers Care

The Floor has stayed fairly consistent with the quality and playfulness. However, it has made many small changes almost every season. Season 5 introduces a new twist that allows someone to block people from picking them in a duel. It’s called a Territory Freeze.

In previous seasons, The Floor introduced similar advantages, such as the ability to swap a category. These little changes have added to the game without fundamentally changing it. It’s the right kind of evolution. Something that improves the game without twisting it into something new.

It shows that The Floor producers care about the quality of their show.

Stream The Floor on Hulu.

Have you watched The Floor? The Rob Lowe starrer varies by season given how aggressively or non-aggressively contestants play, but a series of new rule changes are shaking things up on the 2025 TV schedule. If you were to ask Lowe, however, I’m not sure he would have believed the show would already land on the list of best game shows just four seasons in. But he opened up on its popularity in a recent interview.

Rob Lowe says he’s constantly surprised about how popular The Floor is on Fox and for those with a Hulu subscription. He specifically cited a popular video trend Kim Kardashian did, and mentioned how you just never see what’s going to hit coming – even if you are already a popular personality yourself, as the actor is.

In addition, one notable thing about The Floor is how anyone really can find a solid category in their wheelhouse and play. Some categories come with a harder level of difficulty than others, of course, but the Fox series is exciting precisely because we average folks can play at home in a way Jeopardy makes it difficult -- unless you are a trivia brainiac, of course. I honestly can't get enough of the gameplay at home, and I'm constantly hollering at my TV while watching.

Still, when it comes to actually competing on the show, Rob Lowe and the producers want to keep the contestants on their toes, telling Deadline why continual changes are coming down the pipeline. This season, they’ve swapped things up, adding components like the “category steal” in order to give contestants who play aggressively even more of an advantage than they had prior.

There are things contestants can do to set themselves up for $250,000 success, however, like having a solid general knowledge base and flexibility with categories, being a quick study, or setting oneself up with a category other competitors may be intimidated by. However, one thing I really can’t get enough of watching The Floor is how much chance still comes into play, whether or not a contestant wants it to.

Getting called later in the game can be a longevity advantage, for example. Or getting called near someone who has already landed a lot of floor pieces can be a pro or con. It can be a pro if you are a contestant who just wants to go home with the $20,000 prize package at the end of the day and are confident in your abilities, or it can be a con if you win that much floor but still have “weeks” to make it until the end of the game. You may end up having to go up against the one category you will do very poorly at. Anything can happen.

It’s great, low stakes fun if you are a viewer. However, if you are a contestant, from exit interviews I can tell it feels a whole lot more serious. It's not all so serious, however. Rob Lowe always looks like he's having a blast, particularly when categories like The Brat Pack and more come up. (He is the guy trying to get a Brat Pack reunion together, after all.)

I didn't have him hosting a game show on my bingo card a few years ago. Regardless, it turns out The Floor is a great fit, and I can't see what changes Fox has in store next, and whether it's TV companion 99 to Beat will see the same popularity.

Recently while hitting up the Hulu app without a plan, I stumbled upon The Floor, a game show hosted by Rob Lowe that’s apparently already produced three seasons. Spoiler alert: I’m now obsessed with it. I’ve tried to convince no less than twenty people to watch it, and I’ve spent more time than I’m willing to share thinking about what my category would be. I’m all in, but also, I need to talk about how it badly needs a rule change.

Before I get into it, let me explain the rules quickly in case you’ve never seen the game show. In short, 100 people stand on a large, evenly divided board. Everyone has their own square and a category they’ve chosen that they’re particularly knowledgeable about. One lady might have types of flowers, and another lady might have 20th Century artists. A randomizer picks one contestant, and that contestant must pick one person in an adjoining square to face off against in a heads up trivia match about their category.

The loser of the duel goes home, and the winner gets the other person’s square and carries on with either their own category if it wasn’t played yet or the other person’s category if that one wasn’t played. Afterwards, the winner can decide whether to keep playing or go back to the floor and let the randomizer choose someone else. Whoever is the last one left wins $250,000.

The Floor is a fun concept and Rob Lowe works well as the host, but unfortunately, it tends to reward really passive play. The randomizer only chooses contestants who haven’t played yet. So, a majority of people who win their battle simply go back to the floor and wind up sitting on their two squares, while everyone else eliminates each other. It essentially incentivizes hiding.

I wish I could knock the strategy, but under the current rules, not playing is the best way to set yourself up to win the money at the end. The show has tried to introduce some bonuses to get contestants to be more aggressive. Whoever has the most squares (or pieces of the floor) at the end of each episode wins $20,000, and if you win three consecutive battles, you get a time boost of five additional seconds which you can use during any heads up battle of your choice in the future. Those carrots do convince some people to keep going, but there are still way too many that remain passive.

Here’s my solution. Right now, the randomizer only chooses contestants who have not played before. That means if you win one battle, you can sit around and avoid playing again (if someone doesn’t pick you) until every single other contestant has played at least once. That means you can sit there while 50 or 60 people are eliminated without doing anything. I don’t like that. I think the randomizer should be recalibrated to potentially choose anyone who hasn't played or has played exactly once.

Let’s walk through a practical example. Let’s say you have one square and you either get picked by the randomizer or challenged by another contestant. You battle and win. Now, you have two choices, you can either go back to the floor, where you can take a break but are still at risk of being picked by the randomizer, or you can keep going and play once more, with the incentive being you not only pick up another piece of the floor but also then make yourself immune to the randomizer.

Now let’s say you win again, then you still have a compelling choice. You can go back to the floor without worrying about getting hit by the randomizer, or you can keep going and try to win the third duel to pick up the time bonus. That’s now two consecutive decisions the show has given the contestant that offer a high risk, high reward scenario.

It’s a delicate balance. I do think waiting to fight another day is a reasonable strategy. I don’t think the show should force contestants to just keep playing over and over again, but I would like to see more winners who are at least somewhat aggressive during the earlier episodes. That means the players need to be incentivized a bit more to stay and keep playing. The time bonus and the money at the end of each episode help a little bit, but I think requiring them to play a second time to be immune from the randomizer would really help and potentially convince a higher percentage of people to play a third time in order to try and get the time bonus.

The Floor has already been renewed over at FOX for another season and will return to the TV schedule on Wednesday September 24th. In preparation, you can get caught up with old episodes that are available to stream with a Hulu subscription. It's a really fun game show that could eventually become an all-time great. It just needs to keep evolving a little bit to become the best possible version.

May is always a big month for broadcast TV, with advertising upfronts forcing network execs to figure out fall schedules and cull their existing lineups to make room for impending projects. But admist all of 2024’s canceled and ending shows, there’s still room for good news, which Fox offered up in the form of renewals for two fan-favorite shows that were also among the final series whose fates were still unconfirmed: The Floor and The Cleaning Lady.

What’s more, both updates are slightly more complex than just a straight-up renewal order, so let’s take a closer look at what fans can expect from both shows later this year and beyond.

The Floor Renewed For Seasons 2 And 3

Rob Lowe proved that he could balance two different TV gigs at the same time when he took the stage of Fox’s latest twist on trivia game shows as the host of The Floor while also starring in 9-1-1: Lone Star as co-lead Owen Strand. Granted, he was likely able to fit the hosting gig into his schedule with the Texas-set drama’s next season having been delayed to Fall 2024 due to the entertainment industry strikes in 2023.

But it appears as if everyone involved figured out a keen way for Lowe to continue hosting the show despite getting back to the norm on Lone Star, as Fox renewed The Floor for not just one, but two new seasons. Interestingly enough, the network’s announcement notes that both seasons are part of the 2024-2025 TV season, though without detailing exactly when those seasons are set to air.

Not only that, but The Floor’s titular set will also be expanding. The first season, which Fox boasts as being the #1 unscripted freshman series of 2023-2024, featured 81 contestants competing in the show’s image-recognizing battles to try and cover the most ground. Now, audiences will see 100 hopefuls facing off to try and win the grand prize, with both of the upcoming seasons going with that uptick in players.

Finally, Fox Entertainment announced it’s entered into a first-look deal with Rob Lowe to help develop more unscripted series going forward that would be produced by FOX Alternative Entertainment. Lowe, who also serves as a producer on The Floor, previously hosted the trivia format Mental Samurai, which lasted for two seasons, and is also currently starring in the Netflix comedy Unstable, which was renewed for Season 2 in November 2023, and will return at some point in 2024.

The Cleaning Lady Renewed For Season 4 With Behind-The-Scenes Change

Fox went right down to the wire with The Cleaning Lady, which was the final scripted series of any network to get a decision. But in the end, execs decided to give Élodie Yung’s Thony De La Rosa another season of criminal fixing and doctoring, though with a big change on the creative team.

For Season 4, The Cleaning Lady is losing executive producers Miranda Kwok and Jeannine Renshaw in their former roles as co-showrunners, with Kwok transitioning into an executive consultant role on the series she developed for Fox. According to Deadline, producers are now seeking out a new showrunner(s) to take over for Season 4, which follows a year that was majorly hindered by both the strikes and by the untimely death of co-star Adan Canto, which forced the writers to reshape the story to account for his character no longer being around.

The Cleaning Lady’s fourth season will reportedly comprise 12 episodes, and that count is said to be one of the sticking points involved with the decision-making process, with Fox execs generally aiming to curb the number as much as possible for budget-saving reasons. That said, Season 4 should be the most financially lucrative season yet for the network and co-studio Warner Bros. TV, which should help keep the new episodes on par with what fans are used to, even if there aren’t quite as many to watch as other dramas.

Clearly audiences can expect for Yung’s character to survive the impending two-hour Season 3 finale, which is set to air on Tuesday, May 21, at 8:00 p.m. ET, and will be available to stream the next day with a Hulu subscription. Head to our 2024 TV premiere schedule to see what other big shows are on the way.

Spoilers ahead for the series premiere of The Floor on Fox. 

When Rob Lowe returns to Fox early in a new year, it's usually to reprise his role as Owen Strand on 9-1-1: Lone Star. Due to the WGA writers strike and SAG-AFTRA actors strike of 2023, however, fans of the 9-1-1 spinoff still have a while to wait before Owen arrives in the 2024 TV schedule. Lowe is back on Fox as host of new game show The Floor; now, after one episode, I have thoughts on the new series as well as what we know so far about Lone Star Season 5. 

Rob Lowe Hosts The Floor

News broke back in September 2023 that Rob Lowe would bring The Floor to Fox as part of the midseason lineup in early 2024, and I have to admit that I had my doubts. The title of the show immediately made me think of The Wall on NBC and The Cube on TBS, and I'm not a huge fan of those compared to classic shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. 

I'm glad I gave the premiere a shot, however, because The Floor reminds me more of a combination of Jeopardy and The Weakest Link than anything else. Any game show that has me yelling answers at my TV is a game show that works in my book! Rob Lowe is also a veteran host for Fox after hosting two seasons of Mental Samurai for the network. 

Although Mental Samurai only lasted for a couple of seasons, we ranked it on our list of game shows to watch if you love Jeopardy, and it had the bad luck to delay Season 2 due to the COVID shutdowns across the entertainment industry. So far, I can say that I'm enjoying his return to hosting with The Floor.

The series premiere did leave me thinking about 9-1-1: Lone Star, and not just because this is usually the time of year when the drama returns. When a stuntman stepped up to compete on The Floor, Rob Lowe joked:

The punchline of the joke was that while the stuntman contestant 100% looked like he could play a fireman in primetime television, he also looked nothing like Rob Lowe. After the contestant said he'd shave his beard, Lowe declared that they "are homies for life." While the rest of the contestants were laughing at the exchange, it set me thinking about the eventual return of Lone Star. 

What About 9-1-1: Lone Star?

Season 4 of Lone Star ended with an intense finale that delivered some deaths and left big questions for Season 5 to answer. Unfortunately, viewers will have to wait quite a long time to see the aftermath of those twists. The fifth season is still happening, but it was pushed back to premiere in the fall of 2024 rather than early midseason as usual. 9-1-1 will be back much earlier with a cruise ship crisis, with its debut season on ABC kicking off in March. 

We can hope that Fox will at least bring Lone Star back in early fall rather than late fall, but no matter what, we're presumably more than half a year away from a new episode. When promoting The Floor to USA Today, though, Rob Lowe took the time to reflect on what he loves about his scripted show. He said:

Normally, I would suggest that maybe there's a shot of a Lone Star character popping up on 9-1-1 for an appearance sooner than fall 2024, but that seems much more unlikely nowadays than previous years. The original series was cancelled by Fox and then immediately picked up for Season 7 on ABC, whereas Lone Star remains on Fox. Crossovers across different networks aren't unprecedented, as NBC's One Chicago has shared a character with CBS' FBI, but I'm not going to cross my fingers too hard that it will happen with Lone Star and 9-1-1. 

For now, Lone Star fans can always revisit the first four seasons streaming with a Hulu subscription and check out The Floor with Rob Lowe on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Fox.