While the primetime series was still being produced, NBC began developing a daily half-hour edition that would be syndicated to local stations.

If the team banked enough money to reach or exceed the target, the round ended immediately and any excess was forfeited.

Any question in progress when time ran out was discarded, with the host revealing the correct answer only if it had been fully read.

In the event of a tie, a tiebreaking vote is cast by the contestant who was named as its "strongest link".

For the 2001–02 run of the NBC series, a seventh round was played for 90 seconds (1:30) with the two remaining team members.

The abbreviated first season of the syndicated series also used the double stakes round, which was conducted for 45 seconds with the last two contestants.

The change in the potential top prize for the second season resulted in this round being cut from the show.

The winner of this round was named the day's strongest link and won all the money in the bank, while the runner-up received nothing.

In the event of a tie, the host continued asking pairs of questions until only one contestant answered correctly, winning the bank.

The NBC version of Weakest Link started off well in the ratings, pulling 17.49 million viewers on its third episode,[10] but quickly began to slip.

The producers attempted to boost the ratings with large numbers of episodes featuring celebrities as the contestants, as well as others in which the team played on behalf of a selected charity.

Many stations opted to replace it with other programming, such as a daily syndicated edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, resulting in its being moved to an undesirable time slot or dropped altogether.

[11] These were billed as 'Weakest Link USA' in programming guides, although the title sequence was not altered to reflect this fact.

The record highest amount of prize money won on the NBC version was $189,500, set by Delia Clayton in the 2002 "Tournament of Losers" episode.

On July 8, 2020, it was announced that actress Jane Lynch would host a revival of the show on NBC, featuring a few modern twists, such as picture clues on the contestants' podium screens.