You must give Wheel of Fortune Credit. While Danger! responded to the loss of its iconic host with chaotic experiments—introducing a controversial fleet of guest hosts and a playoff tournament that extended into prime time with a barrage of dazzling specials—the house built by Pat Sajak is comfortably and defiantly motionless.
The game show kicked off its 42nd season last night, and there was a lot of excitement in the air because of the hole in the lectern. Pat Sajak had retired after four decades, and the deftly understated Ryan Seacrest, who has proven his competence in a variety of media – radio host, red carpet interviewer, American Idol Folie – was named heir long before Sajak rode off into the sunset. Seacrest’s fresh blood could seemingly justify a major restructuring of the infrastructure at the core of the show. Would Wheel of Fortune face a revolution? Would we see new games? Rule changes? Maybe even a returning champion or two? Would there be something anything, to arouse a little curiosity?
No, nothing like that. Judging by Seacrest’s debut episode on Monday night, the show is flirting with the smallest of innovations — longtime co-host Vanna White no longer has to touch the letters on the board to reveal them; there’s a slightly new set and new visuals — but no one dared touch the rest. It’s so similar that it’s almost eerie to have Seacrest onstage instead of Sajak.
Honestly, I shouldn’t have expected anything else. Wheel of Fortune is fundamental. The show regularly draws around 8 million viewers a night, and although the program has lacked cultural exposure in recent years, the steady inertia has more than pleased its partners in syndication. This makes Seacrest the ideal vessel for Wheels Primary Broadcast Part: His tedium has been refined to the point where watching him with the sound off in an empty laundromat feels like watching him live in the studio audience. If the producers wanted to recreate the emptiness of Pat Sajak for 40 years, they found the perfect replacement.
The unique wrinkles Seacrest brought to his first hosting gig are so minor that they almost don’t deserve mention. Some eagle-eyed Wheel of Fortune Fans noticed that he wasn’t holding the deck of cue cards that Sajak relied on as he struggled through the tepid interviews with the candidates before diving into the action. Seacrest clearly took the time to memorize the prosaic facts about the three players before him – one of whom lives in Denver but is originally from the South, another enjoys visiting NFL stadiums, all of whom disappeared from American consciousness at 8:05 p.m. – which added a touch of warmth to the proceedings compared to the teeth-grinding cordiality of the previous host.
Seacrest also took the time at the beginning of the half hour to explain in detail why he had accepted this job. He claimed to be a fan of Wheel of Fortune since his youth and, perhaps more dubiously, that he and Vanna White are long-time friends. The real appeal of the job – the huge payday with minimal workload – went unmentioned, as did any honorary ovation to Sajak. (The only reference was to the “big shoes” Seacrest said he had to fill.) This oversight was seized upon by some tabloid journalists. Press leaks have suggested that Seacrest earns significantly less than Sajak’s legendary $20 million-a-year generosity, and over the summer it was revealed that the once and future wheel The host interrupted his break to act as moderator Celebrity Wheel of Fortune next June. Signs of a budding feud? Two heavyweights jockeying for territory? Honestly, I’d do anything to spice up the show.
That said, Seacrest has achieved his goals with crisp, practiced skill. It doesn’t take a broadcasting genius to count the number of Ts in a word puzzle, but the man is still comfortable in his job. He has internalized and mimicked all of the obligatory Sajak tics – the anxious groan as the pointer approaches the BANKRUPT cone, the casual efficiency with which he recites promotional copy for an all-inclusive vacation in Punta Cana – to total symmetry. No acclimation is required. He could produce 100 more episodes like this without breaking a sweat.
And really, how could anyone do the job differently? Whether we like it or not, Sajak pioneered the sober dictum that hosted Wheel of Fortuneand the slightest departure could upset the whole thing. Everyone involved in the project – Seacrest, White, the many faceless television executives behind the scenes – certainly know that they have hit the jackpot and will therefore never have the motivation to wheelThis is the television business at its most relentless and, as is often the case, most profitable.
And yet, despite the dogmatic attachment to the customs, some Wheel of Fortune Fans still found something to mourn over in the early dawn of the Seacrest era. There’s a new layout for the Toss-Up, the anything-goes segment in which letters of a puzzle are slowly revealed on the screen until someone sings in with the solution – with the contestants’ faces flashing along the below of the screen, rather than at the top. It’s the kind of change you’ll barely notice unless your weeknights have been interrupted by the tasteless mush of Wheel of Fortune for decades. For these weirdos, everything is taboo. (“Why Wheel of Fortune look so awful now,” one person wrote online. “Like WTF.”) Seacrest was brought on board to ensure the status quo reigns supreme, but really anyone other than Sajak would be greeted with teeth. That will likely remain the case until he fully grows into the role and takes over as the lead. Wheel of Fortune back to its natural habitat – a distant beacon in the spirit of the times, rolling on undisturbed for generations and making a small number of people a lot of money. Some things, I suppose, are never meant to be change.
