BET has announced that the fifth season of The Game will debut on Tuesday, January 10th at 10pm. The cable channel renewed the Tia Mowry Hardrict dramady last April for 22 new episodes.

The Game spent three seasons on The CW before being cancelled in May 2009. After having great success with reruns of the sitcom, BET picked up the show for 13 new episodes. They put it back into production in 2010, reuniting the old cast.

The BET audience continued to embrace The Game and season four debuted last January to 7.7 million viewers. That was the series’ best performance ever and BET’s most-watched telecast. The numbers fell quite a bit during the course of the season but ended with a very healthy 4.4 million viewers in March. The renewal came as no surprise.

BET has released their schedule plans for season five but, if they run one episode a week, fans will see new episodes through May.

What do you think? Will you be tuning in to see The Game Have you adjusted to the show’s new tone? Do you miss the sitcom version?

Image courtesy BET.