Wheel of Fortune 2025-26 Season Discussion Thread

[mechamind]

And all good things must come to an end eventually. Chad was defeated in his 5th game, but he leaves with a grand total of $183,723 in cash and prizes.

Today's victor, Edwin, is off to a better start with a $75,000 win in the Bonus Round. Fun & Games also makes a rare appearance here, and he picked a helpful vowel to solve the puzzle JOUSTING almost immediately. I guess it helped that he'd also been watching Game of Thrones recently.

[PGS25]

Clearly Drew has never heard of "Infrared".

[mechamind]

The luckiest person he knows was apparently unlucky in this Bonus Round. Drew's guess of LOOKING BACK fit the board perfectly with his letter choices, but the actual answer was LOOKING AWAY. Maybe it was the second word starting with a vowel, as Pat sometimes commented that it can throw off some contestants.

[Richie]

We have had bad luck of retaining the Wild Card this week.   Chad lost it 3 times, and last nights contestant joins that dreaded club.

Drew chose badly of WHAT ARE YOU DOING over THING and FOOD and DRINK.   The G and O were bad picks and that last word was trouble.   Very hard last night.   WHAT ARE YOU DOING is two losses away from 20.

[mechamind]

I feel weird talking about a buzzer beater that occurred at a time when we couldn't beat the bandwidth limit.

Tuesday had a buzzer beating bonus round solve with the puzzle UNBELIEVABLE MOVE, and contestant Lynnette was lucky it counted even with a pause after the first syllable. Former contestant Robert (3/25/16 on Wheel and 6/3/24 on Price) was in the audience and shouted "Yes!" after the complete answer.

Contestant Diane from Thursday is the last returning champ of the week, as there's only one more day to win during the Spring Forward.

[PGS25]

My final verdict on the "Spring Forward" event. "D". Only 2 contestants were able to get past day 2 and win over $100,000. Every time someone had a chance get past day 2, they flamed out. Like misspell a word like "racquet" and thought it was "racket".  Blank on a word like "will" in "You will not be disappointed". Spin when they should've solved, even when the puzzle was 90% filled. It was an idea that should have just stayed on the paper.

[mechamind]

^ Yeah, no. With a 4-day champ, the week was a C at the minimum. Despite some misplays, having at least one contestant beat the old 3-day limit is worth something.

While our final champion couldn't repeat success on the final day, we did have a show with 5-digit totals all around, so a good day in the more familiar way.

I give the Spring Forward event a B-, as we are getting somewhere with the returning champs format. It took a while, I was irritated by bad calls with money on the table, and I wish we could've had an additional 4-day champ. After seeing Chad's performance, however, it's certainly worth doing again.

[PGS25]

Did you notice all the returning players played in the red position?

[jhc2010]

Did you notice all the returning players played in the red position?

Do they still “draw numbers before the start of the show”?

[mechamind]

Yes, they're still drawing numbers. I don't know if they were tossing a coin or doing something different for the following days of the Spring Forward, but I'd have to guess that the yellow and blue positions are still determined at random.

[Richie]

We had a bad pick in Bonus Land for day 1 of Family Week.   I wanted EVENT.

They stuck a one worder in WHAT ARE YOU DOING and it was a tough word.

[PGS25]

A mixed bag of crazy on tonight's show. 4 words fouled up the players. Cup and mug from the 2nd toss up, and won't and don't from the 2nd round. Thanks to the $5,000 in the speed round, we had a "from 3rd to 1st" moment. Giving the winning team $40,000, and main game total of $75,150. The million dollars was unable to be played for bonus round, however, with 23 shows left in Season 43, there is still plenty of chances. I knew the bonus puzzle from the RSTLNE, and the champs knew it too. They doubled their money and won $80,000. And a show total of $115,150.

[mechamind]

It's quite rare for someone to score $36,000 (or more) in the Speed-Up nowadays. This was clearly the highlight of the main game today thanks to the $5,000 Final Spin.

I love how the yellow team had such a big group with them for the Bonus Round that it was nearly impossible for Ryan to show the audience the envelope after that solve.

[PGS25]

A great way to end a great week of shows. All 3 teams won over $10,000, another "3rd to 1st" moment thanks to the $5,000, and another bonus win. 3 out of 5 in the bonus round, and over $300,000 won this week. 20 shows left in Season 43, few chances left to give away the $100,000, and the $1,000,000.

[PGS25]

Another great show to kickoff the final 4 weeks of Season 43. A $55,000 win in the Bonus Round, giving the winner over $75,000, and a chance to win a sportscar on Friday, hand picked by Jay Leno.