Wheel of Fortune 2025-26 Season Discussion Thread

[mechamind]

Best main game player of the week tonight. Contestant Joe won $63,018 in cash and trips. This includes a very lucky Round 1 where he bought a dud O before the other two spun penalty wedges, and he won plenty of cash plus the trip wedge. This also includes a Triple Toss-Up sweep!

He didn't even need to solve a bonus puzzle to get there (though I think he was coming close to solving VERY FASHIONABLE).

[Allentown854]

Best main game player of the week tonight. Contestant Joe won $63,018 in cash and trips. This includes a very lucky Round 1 where he bought a dud O before the other two spun penalty wedges, and he won plenty of cash plus the trip wedge. This also includes a Triple Toss-Up sweep!

He didn't even need to solve a bonus puzzle to get there (though I think he was coming close to solving VERY FASHIONABLE).

My response to this embarrassing bonus round loss

[mechamind]

Our next new category, fittingly for a Teachers Week, is Old School. I wasn't sure if it would actually be school themed or just about the past, but it could be both. I assume a MANUAL PENCIL SHARPENER still has its uses, as we were not allowed to sharpen pencil crayons in the electric ones when I was in school.

We're back to normal main game totals again, but contestant Ryan followed that in the Bonus Round with a good solve on FLEXING MY BICEPS.

[Allentown854]

Our next new category, fittingly for a Teachers Week, is Old School. I wasn't sure if it would actually be school themed or just about the past, but it could be both. I assume a MANUAL PENCIL SHARPENER still has its uses, as we were not allowed to sharpen pencil crayons in the electric ones when I was in school.

We're back to normal main game totals again, but contestant Ryan followed that in the Bonus Round with a good solve on FLEXING MY BICEPS.

This is my response when Bellamie Blackstone and her crusader writers introduce new unnecessary categories

[mechamind]

As someone pointed out on Andy Nguyen's site, all the big winners so far have been male. Teachers Week seems like a week that should break that streak at some point.

We're narrowing it down in the first round puzzle with MY POODLE ATE MY HOMEWORK, I see. I don't know if they were setting it up for a late-round dud on the second word, but it didn't happen. Contestant Scott got a perfect round there.

On the other hand, Scott slipped when attempting to solve the Round 2 puzzle KING GEORGE THE THIRD GRADER (he said "trailer" for the last word), so contestant Miguel got his turn back to win some cash and a trip.

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Also, just thinking back to last week's Pet Peeve puzzle of PEOPLE WHO REPLY ALL; I had three people do that with an email this afternoon at work.

[mechamind]

I always love when this happens! The winning contestant Donna solved her bonus puzzle WORDS TO LIVE BY with no help from the three-and-a-vowel. "It just popped in my head", and then she answered. With the letters that were already up there, I knew there was still a chance.

[PatrickRox80]

Not sure how long Ryan has been stalling on revealing the Bonus Round amount only to show it's something like $45,000, but it's becoming a pet peeve of mine. Pat only did that when the contestant spun $100,000 or $1 million, for a very good reason.

[ThisDayinWeather]

Not sure how long Ryan has been stalling on revealing the Bonus Round amount only to show it's something like $45,000, but it's becoming a pet peeve of mine. Pat only did that when the contestant spun $100,000 or $1 million, for a very good reason.

He did that last season too. I found it annoying too because I would be tricked into thinking someone won $100,000 (or $1 million) only to have it be just $40,000 (not that I wouldn't love $40,000).

[mechamind]

A strong finish to the week! A competitive main game between contestants Cory and Alesha (the former also pulling off a Triple Toss-Up sweep), and Cory becomes our first $100,000 winner of the season!

[Richie]

A strong finish to the week! A competitive main game between contestants Cory and Alesha (the former also pulling off a Triple Toss-Up sweep), and Cory becomes our first $100,000 winner of the season!

It was unfortunate that Cory forfeited the Wild Card to the Bankrupt (and that's the 6th one in 10 shows).    But he didn't need it anyway, he was smart with his letter picks and he definitely earned that $100,000.

I noticed we had a different list for Bonus Land tonight: WHAT ARE YOU WEARING/ SHOW BIZ/ PHRASE.   THING and WHAT ARE YOU DOING took a break.

[mechamind]

I guess we are getting these new categories too quickly if I don't notice that A Numbers Game from Tuesday was a new one.

(EDIT: I also didn't notice that Guilty Pleasure from today was new. I'm just gonna keep thinking that each new category already appeared at least once before, am I?)

Today's show was harder to watch compared to past ones this season, partly due to a house minimum in Round 1, but also a Trip Puzzle of FINE WINE & GOOD MOOD FOOD leading to several wrong letter calls. It had me thinking back to February 28, 2022 when GOOD MOOD FOOD was just begging to be a dudfest. The Speed-Up of BUFFALO CAULIFLOWER also appeared to have had some unaired duds.

Fortunately, the puzzle BEING PROACTIVE didn't cause any trouble for the big winner Megan. She didn't even need the O or A to solve it.

[mechamind]

It seemed unusual to me that YOU MAY SAY I'M A DREAMER from "Imagine" would be used for the Trip Puzzle, a round that's supposed to give us a happy ending every time. With a stay in the Yoko Ono room at the Queen Elizabeth in Montréal, now it makes sense.

I thought Old School was going to be limited to specific weeks such as Teachers Week, but we had it this time for the Speed-Up round.

As for the Speed-Up, it's another come-from-behind game with contestant Nathan overtaking Dan thanks to a $5,000 Final Spin...from Dan.

[mechamind]

Another tough main game to watch, but we made up for it in the Bonus Round with a $75,000 win by contestant Meredith! Fittingly for Ryan, the answer to the puzzle was EMPTYING MY POCKETS.

All this week, the official YouTube channel for Wheel has had "a million" in its video titles (except for Monday, where it was in the first line of the video description). They're getting ready for an upcoming $1,000,000 win for sure.

[mechamind]

Since Ryan made his Celebrity Wheel debut last night, we now have an idea how he interacts with the celebrities.

And in his debut, he was basically one of them, not simply a game show host, and the chemistry was perfect. The celebrity picks were probably just to ease Ryan into this version, but I'm sure he'll have a great time with other types of celebrities as well.

As for the game, we introduce Tech Talk and Most Likely To as part of the category lineup. The latter's puzzle of BE EJECTED FROM THE GAME is somewhat fitting based on how Celebrities usually act during the game.

The scoring system is the same with the $5K/$10K/$20K structure and $5K Triple Toss-Ups. Considering this, these were modest totals to start off, and we couldn't quite pull off a Bonus Round win (I would've categorized the first bonus puzzle of EPIC FAIL as Phrase or possibly Event, though I can kinda see why they went with Thing instead). Maybe we'll see some big winnings next time.

[Gameshowgenius26]

Another tough main game to watch, but we made up for it in the Bonus Round with a $75,000 win by contestant Meredith! Fittingly for Ryan, the answer to the puzzle was EMPTYING MY POCKETS.

All this week, the official YouTube channel for Wheel has had "a million" in its video titles (except for Monday, where it was in the first line of the video description). They're getting ready for an upcoming $1,000,000 win for sure.

I certainly HOPE that we see the million dollars being won and soon. Lord knows that we are just over a decade overdue to see someone else walk away with that cash!