[quote name=\'wheelloon\' post=\'229519\' date=\'Oct 30 2009, 10:34 PM\'][quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'229503\' date=\'Oct 30 2009, 05:02 PM\'][quote name=\'wheelloon\' post=\'229493\' date=\'Oct 30 2009, 02:15 PM\']Merv originally envisioned the set of Wheel, in his own words, as "A stage full of prizes."[/quote]
This may be heresy, but the shopping for prizes--while incredibly charming--never seemed central to the game. Any show giving away varying amounts of cash could theoretically make you buy prizes with the cash before you leave. On "Sale of the Century," on the other hand, buying stuff was actually fundamental to the game.
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Naw, not remotely heresy, at least in my book. Your summary on it matches my opinion pretty well too. It was cute, it did provide the variety I liked, but the show was ultimately better without it, in my view. It wasn't like the show didn't had a wide range of other fabulous merchandise on it the next ten years though...
I recall way back when the $5000 space first appeared and it was exciting to see someone call a letter that popped up more than once. Returning champions gave us someone to root for or against, and now that players are uniformly (and insincerely) enthusiastic, there's no way for any to stand out.
Games do best when there's a chance something out of the ordinary might happen, and "Wheel" has distilled that away.
Lack of returning champs are number 2 on my mental WOF complaint list, and you hit one of the big reasons why. Ken Jennings run wasn't exciting because it was just Jeopardy, or because he had the most incredible personality in the world (sometimes, quite the contrary), it was exciting because of his ongoing establishment and his great run of skill/luck/knowledge/*oh my* Fortune. The same could apply to just about any well-crafted game show with such a rule in place. Distilled is a rather good way of describing things at this point.
I agree to a point- the Prize Puzzles/Prize Wedges/Mystery Round prizes could be more varied, and I don't think they should have gotten rid of the cars in the Bonus Round, but sometimes being comfortable is a good thing as people know what to expect, and it's not like they don't tweak it any at all (the Million Dollar Wedge was the best thing to happen to the show in YEARS).
The big moment will be when Pat and/or Vanna decide to call it a day- which will be sooner rather than later-I'd suspect they might make a major overhaul then (maybe make it look more like some of the modern European versions set-wise).
Just remember back to TPIR circa 2007. I'm not sure how crazy they'll get (also depends if Friedman is still kicking on there then), but if they do too much, that ole alienation factor could come up. I just hope Sony/CBSTVDist spend more time in finding their replacements then was done on TPIR. Pat and Vanna's contracts, IIRC, go through 2014, so I'm waiting to hear an interesting announcement from them both around that time. It will all be interesting, nonetheless. I have to say though, there are a lot of arrows pointing towards much of the success of that show being because of Sajak, in particular, so if that's especially the case, the gang better have their act together when he decides the give the show the wave.
However, again, I could be very wrong. I was very vocal of my non-support for the MDW when it was first announced. And while my approach on including a $1kk top prize on the show, IF I was told I absolutely had to, would have been inherently different, I can't argue against the great buzz and publicity its inclusion brought the show these past two years, along with the bit of ratings spike the show has also had thereafter. So I had a tiny bit of crow come my way, won't be the last time, but hopefully it won't become a trend.
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I would like to see more variety in the Prize Puzzles. Let's say a Prize Puzzle is BUILDING A NEW LAWN DECK, and Pat says, "You won a gift card", then Charlie says that the contestant has won a $5,000 gift card from Lowe's.
Brian
