Mini review: The Wheel

[Doug Eastick]

I've only watched 11 minutes and it is really stupid.    Two of the six Stars on the wheel are former Celebrity Big Brother contestants. Nuff said.

How did Steve Kornacki get sucked into a chair on that show? Wow 

/Doug
eas...@mcd.on.ca

[Jim Ellwanger]

I have a friend who worked as a researcher on the show, and he said they had a big problem with the originally scheduled celebrities dropping out at the last minute, which meant having to write a lot of new questions at the last minute for whatever replacements they could scrounge up.

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[Melissa P]

Thanks for the heads up.  Now, I know I don't have to watch until the 29th.

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[David Bruggeman]

Kornacki also appears on "Football Night in America" so he might have a bad contract/needs the money.

I might have to take one for the list and see if the Blake Shelton/Carson Daly show "Barmageddon" is stupider than this apparent train wreck.

David

[Mark Jeffries]

It's stupid in a harmless way.  And if you like mammary glands there's Nikki Bella.

Mark Jeffries
spotl...@gmail.com

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[Doug Eastick]

I see from wikipedia that this show has a history from the UK.

The Wheel (game show) - Wikipedia

Maybe I was just put off by the lights, flashyness, and physical logistics of chairs rising and spinning.

And I must share this clip from Friends....

Friends | Joey, Ross, and Chandler Play Bamboozled | HBO Max - YouTube

[David Bruggeman]

Barmageddon is also very honest about being stupid.  It's basically the same kind of games East Coast and British Jimmy do on their shows, but without the annoying Jimmys.

I'll try The Wheel again, but what little I saw last night suggested it wasn't much more than "Millionaire" with a celebrity phone-a-friend for every question and lots of moving parts.

David

[Jon Delfin]

On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 11:11 AM Doug Eastick <eas...@eastick.ca> wrote:

I see from wikipedia that this show has a history from the UK.

The Wheel (game show) - Wikipedia

That's the version I watched (some of). I can't imagine a US version would find a way to improve it, and based on this thread, I'm fine with not checking it out. 

[Tom Wolper]

I watched it and found it a harmless, dumb game. I don’t feel the need to record any more episodes, but if I were in a social situation and someone told me they enjoyed watching it, I wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with that.

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[M-D November]

Nikki's fine until she opens her mouth and you remember that one of her major weaknesses in WWE was her total inability to cut a promo worth half a damn. You'd think the time she'd have picked SOMETHING up from John Cena for all the time they were together.

[Melissa P]

Thanks for that explanation. I had no idea who Nikki Bella was. Guess I could’ve googled. 

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 20, 2022, at 1:21 PM, M-D November <mdnov...@gmail.com> wrote:

Nikki's fine until she opens her mouth and you remember that one of her major weaknesses in WWE was her total inability to cut a promo worth half a damn. You'd think the time she'd have picked SOMETHING up from John Cena for all the time they were together.

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[Jim Ellwanger]

A couple of other notes I have to pass along...

- These shows were taped in October 2021.

- Michael McIntyre, the host, often complained about having to repeatedly say "it's one in three, who's it gonna be," saying that NBC forced him to have a rhyming catchphrase.

- McIntyre also pointed out that, in trying to sell the show overseas, they'd emphasized to NBC that it was the highest-rated show on British television in 2020... but didn't mention that when it aired, it was really the only show airing new episodes.

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[Mark Jeffries]

McIntyre almost said as much about "1 in 3" at the top of the Monday night show.

And I saw that there's a credit for an audience warmup guy.  It seems to me that like the British version, there's no real audience (it was said that the reason for "The Wheel" was that McIntyre's regular show is so dependent on audience participation that they couldn't do it during the pandemic).  Why would they have a warmup guy for Christian Shrader's laptop (and the same for the U.S. "The Chase," which also has a warmup man credit and I've actually seen a video that reveals that there's no audience)?

Mark Jeffries
spotl...@gmail.com

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[Adam Bowie]

Michael McIntyre has a pretty decent following in the UK. His big Saturday night show was filmed in large theatres like the London Palladium and featured various bits like "Text All" where he took a celebrity guest's phone and sent a bizarre message (designed to elicit a response) from all that celeb's celebrity friends. He also snuck into people's homes in the middle of the night, creeping up the stairs with the collusion of a partner to host "Midnight Gameshow" in their bedroom. You can find all this on YouTube I've no doubt.

That all stopped for the pandemic and The Wheel seems to avoid many issues with everyone naturally distanced. 

To be honest, the show is pretty popular in the UK, although it's a function of the guests they have on. The contestants seem to have been screened so that nobody who might be good on a proper quiz show like Jeopardy is on it. It's not a gameshow for smart people! This is closer to Price is Right territory - and that may be being unfair to that show's contestants!

McIntyre is popular, filling arenas for his stand-up tours with a very mainstream sense of humour. He's in no way edgy - see also Peter Kay who's bizarrely popular in a similar vein. I'm pretty sure that most of McIntyre's TV work is really to ensure that he can continue to fill those very profitable arenas (the profit for a stand-up compared with a band filling the same venue for often similar amounts must be vastly bigger).

Personally I can very much leave him, although his TV show "bits" are good. The Wheel is not great, and without most US viewers being aware of who he is, I'm not sure how it'll work. 

Incidentally, the big hit new format in the UK right now is a remake of a Dutch format called The Traitors. I've not watched it, but it's doing enormously well. I see a US version is coming to Peacock in January. That feels like the wrong venue to me - NBC would have been a better bet. Stripping it across a few weeks and getting people talking about it is the way to go.

Adam

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[David Lynch]

What I’ve said about Michael McIntyre for American audiences is that his closest American equivalent is Jimmy Fallon. Goofy, has a lot of famous friends, very "love him or hate him” appeal to the masses, but he gets eyeballs. I assume McIntyre insisted on hosting but I think it would have been a lot better with Fallon, because actually knows who the hell these people are and can work with that a little more. And maybe get some higher-wattage celebrities.

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[Tom Wolper]

After Password, Fallon is toxic for me on game shows. He’s hyper and overdoes his people pleasing to the point of being repulsive.

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[Melissa P]

HWCNBN fans are curious about the missing commercial breaks, 2 or 3, I think, in tonight’s show. 

I don’t believe I’ve seen that before. 

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 21, 2022, at 12:50 AM, Jim Ellwanger <trai...@ellwanger.tv> wrote:



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[Jim Ellwanger]

NBC decided to cram four hours of television into three hours of space tonight (following "The Wheel," they reran a 3-episode "Law & Order" crossover event), so to make room, they eliminated most of the commercial breaks.

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[Kevin M.]

Alternatively, nobody wants to advertise on NBC anymore?

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[Mark Jeffries]

And the only actual ads were in the local breaks, at least on "The Wheel" (in the two breaks where there were ads, it was all promos, a PSA for the Sandy Hook Project, which I'm sure Steve Douchbag and his idiots on "Fox and Friends" made a comment about this morning, an ad for "Puss in Boots 2," which as a Universal release counts as promo time, and an NFL Shop ad, which the networks that have the NFL have to run in promo time).  In the old days, this would have been called "sustaining" and Nielsen wouldn't have measured this, I think.  (Also, in the old days this was a "dark week" where ratings weren't taken and the networks dumped all of their news documentaries and cultural shows like, uh, the Kennedy Center Honors on the week's schedule.)

The overnights aren't out yet, so for now we can't check this.

Mark Jeffries
spotl...@gmail.com

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[Melissa P]

Many thanks for the responses. HWCNBN fans don’t care for the show, but were happy with his performance. Split decision on the blue hair.  

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 30, 2022, at 11:06 AM, Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:



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