Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Superfan’ On CBS, A Game Show Where Fans Of A Music Legend Square Off For A VIP Experience

Superfan is a game show where five superfans of a music legend compete to see who is the artist’s ultimate fan. After four rounds that whittle the group down to two, a Twitter/X vote determines who wins the grand prize, which is a VIP experience with the legend. The first season will feature these artists: Kelsea Ballerini, Gloria Estefan, Little Big Town, LL Cool J, Pitbull and Shania Twain.

SUPERFAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see a wide shot of the set of Superfan, with hosts Nate Burleson and Keltie Knight.

The Gist: First up is LL Cool J; after the rap legend and NCIS: Los Angeles star is introduced to his biggest fans (or reintroduced, in some cases). In the first round, “Sound Check,” the contestants need to guess one of LL’s hits from the first few notes. As in all rounds, the eliminated contestant goes to the VIP section to watch the rest of the show.

The second round is called “Super Sight,” where the contestants try to guess an iconic moment from the artist’s career via a blurry picture that gets slowly unblurred. In the third round, “Superfan Showdown”, the three remaining contestants guess what the artist answered during a pre-show interview about different parts of their careers. The final two contestants lip synch to one of the artist’s biggest hits in the “Superfan Finale.” Then the Twitter/X vote is opened up to the public, right before the artist gets on stage and performs for the audience and the contestants.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Superfan is almost like taking That’s My Jam and mixing it with a game show full of civilians.

Our Take: The game portion of Superfan is, to be generous, pretty insignificant. If you were to really classify the show, it would be more like an interview show interspersed with some light fan Q&A. Sure, it’s fun to see the superfans go gaga over their celebrity obsession, but these fans were chosen more for what their favorite artists mean to them more than the fact that they may have bought some of their tour costumes at auction or something like that.

In fact, most of the superfans have likely met their heroes already, like LL’s superfan Lexi. She’s seen him at show meet and greets and other fan events, so it’s not like she melted into a puddle when she got to say hi to LL. Would we want to see more fans not keep it together when they meet the celebs? Maybe.

Anyway, the gameplay seems to be pretty easy, especially the third round, where the three remaining contestants basically have to guess what the artist’s responses are to the interview questions they got before the show. There’s really no strategy or anything like that.

The Superfan Finale round, where the remaining two contestants lip sync to a hit chosen by the artist feels like a lost opportunity to us; this should have been in an earlier round, where we could see more performances. The later rounds would then really get into the nitty gritty of just how super these fans are, by asking things that only obsessed superfans would know.

Burleson, whom CBS is pretty obviously positioning to be their own version of ABC’s Michael Strahan, carries a lot of the load with his effortless charm and rapport with the artists. Knight, who created the show and is an executive producer, could have given herself more to do than just be a glorified sideline reporter, but to be honest, there’s barely enough for one host two do, much less two, and CBS is definitely going to give Burleson most of the spotlight, given that he’s also on two of their signature series, CBS Mornings and The NFL Today.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: We’re not sure how the final results of the Twitter/X poll are going to play out, since the episodes were recorded about a year ago (LL mentions he was going into the 14th season of NCIS: LA, for instance; that season ended this past spring) and the poll is live. Will the winner be notified via Zoom or something?

Sleeper Star: LL did a song from his latest album (his first since 2013!) at the end of the episode, and he’s still got it.

Most Pilot-y Line: We need to mention superfan Lexi’s lip sync performance of Mama Said Knock You Out. It’s one of LL’s biggest hits, and it’s been around for 33 years. You’d think that a superfan like Lexi would have the words tattooed on her brain enough to be pretty tight with the lip synching. But you’d be wrong.

Our Call: STREAM IT, but only for the fun tidbits the legends give Burleson during the game show rounds and the performance they give at the end of each episode. Otherwise, Superfan is a game show that is very light on the game aspect.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.