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.
I just continue to marvel at how the show has entered the zeitgeist. I saw just today, another huge TikTok trend Kim Kardashian was doing…you can’t manufacture it. You never know if it’s gonna happen, and when you’re a part of something that becomes that thing, you just sit back and enjoy it.
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.
All the new rule changes really keep [contestants] on their toes, because they were unaware of them. They show up, they’ve trained, they’ve picked their category, they’ve gone through the vetting process, and they get there, and then in the first episode, I say, ‘Hey, by the way, this year, things are different.’ So all their great plans go out the window.
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.