You have to present Wheel of Fortune credit score. While Jeopardy! responded to the lack of its iconic host with chaotic experimentation—introducing a controversial fleet of visitor hosts and a playoff bracket that has bled into prime time with a deluge of glitzy specials—the home that Pat Sajak constructed is comfortably, defiantly inert.
The sport present entered its 42nd season final evening with a buzz in the air as a result of gap at its presenting lectern. Pat Sajak had retired after a four-decade run, and the adroitly inoffensive Ryan Seacrest, who has demonstrated competence throughout a big selection of mediums—radio host, pink carpet interviewer, American Idol foil—was named the inheritor properly before Sajak rode off into the sunset. The new blood of Seacrest might ostensibly justify a extra infrastructural shakeup in the present’s core. Would Wheel of Fortune be topic to a revolution? Would we see new video games? Rule modifications? Maybe even a returning champion or two? Would there be one thing, something, to spark some intrigue?
Nope, nothing of the kind. To choose from Seacrest’s debut episode Monday evening, the present is flirting with the slightest updates—the longtime co-host, Vanna White, now not has to the touch letters on the board to disclose them; there are a considerably new set and visible parts—however nobody dared contact the remainder of it. It’s so comparable that it’s nearly eerie to have Seacrest on stage as an alternative of Sajak.
Frankly, I shouldn’t have anticipated something in any other case. Wheel of Fortune is foundational. The present routinely pulls in round 8 million viewers a evening, and whereas this system has lacked cultural diffusion in current years, the regular inertia has greater than happy its companions in syndication. That makes Seacrest the best vessel for Wheel’s major broadcast share: His blandness has been so sufficiently refined that the expertise of watching him on mute in an empty laundromat is an identical to seeing him dwell from the studio viewers. If the producers wished to duplicate the vacancy of Pat Sajak for the previous 40 years, then they've discovered the proper surrogate.
The distinctive wrinkles Seacrest delivered to his first efficiency as host are so minor that they nearly don’t deserve mentioning. Some eagle-eyed Wheel of Fortune followers observed that he wasn’t clutching the stack of cue playing cards that Sajak relied on whereas navigating the lukewarm get-to-know-ya contestant interviews earlier than settling into the gameplay. Seacrest clearly took the time to memorize the prosaic factoids in regards to the three gamers in entrance of him—considered one of them lives in Denver however is initially from the South, one other likes to go to NFL stadiums, all disappeared from the American consciousness by 8:05 p.m.—which injected a contact extra heat into the proceedings in comparison with the previous host’s gritted-teeth cordiality.
Seacrest additionally made time, in the beginning of the half hour, to elaborate on why he took this job. He claimed to have been a fan of Wheel of Fortune since his youth, and, maybe extra dubiously, that he and Vanna White are longtime associates. The actual attraction of the gig—the huge payday buoyed to a miniscule workload—went unmentioned, as did any honorific ovations towards Sajak. (The solely reference was to the “large shoes” Seacrest mentioned he wanted to fill.) That oversight was picked up on by some tabloid reporters. Press leaks have urged that Seacrest is making considerably lower than Sajak’s legendary $20-million-per-year largesse, and over the summer time, information broke that the once-and-future Wheel host was breaking his sabbatical to emcee Celebrity Wheel of Fortune subsequent June. Signs of a burgeoning feud? Two heavyweights jostling for territory? Honestly, I’d take something to present the present some juice.
Outside of that, although, Seacrest hit his marks with crisp, seasoned functionality. It doesn't require a broadcasting savant to recite the variety of Ts in a phrase puzzle, however nonetheless, the person is snug in the job. He has digested and replicated all the necessary Sajakian tics—the anxious groan when the dial approaches the BANKRUPT cone, the breezy effectivity with which he recites promotional copy for an all-expenses-paid Punta Cana trip—to the purpose of whole symmetry. No acclimation is essential. He might churn out 100 extra episodes like this with out breaking a sweat.
And actually, how might anybody do the job in a different way? Whether we prefer it or not, Sajak pioneered the staid dictums of being the host of Wheel of Fortune, and essentially the most miniscule of exits might upset the apple cart. Everyone concerned in the undertaking—Seacrest, White, the multitude of faceless community tv executives behind the scenes—absolutely understands that they’ve hit the jackpot, and due to this fact they’ll by no means have the mandatory motivation to reinvent the Wheel. This is the tv enterprise at its most ruthlessly dependable, and as is typically the case, its most worthwhile.
And but, regardless of the dogmatic attachment to customs, a few Wheel of Fortune followers nonetheless managed to find something to mourn in the early daybreak of the Seacrest period. There is a new structure for the Toss-Up, the anything-goes section the place letters in a puzzle are slowly revealed on display till somebody buzzes in with the answer—the place the faces of the contestants are plastered alongside the backside of the display, reasonably than the highest. It is the type of change you’ll scarcely discover until your weeknights have been punctuated with the flavorless gruel of Wheel of Fortune for many years. To these cranks, every thing is taboo. (“Why does Wheel of Fortune look so awful now,” wrote one person online. “Like WTF.”) Seacrest was introduced on board to make sure that the established order reigns supreme, however actually, anybody aside from Sajak was going to be greeted with enamel. It will doubtless stay that way till he absolutely ossifies into the position, steering Wheel of Fortune again towards its pure habitat—a distant beacon in the zeitgeist, rolling on undisturbed for generations, making a small variety of individuals a complete lot of cash. Some issues, I suppose, are by no means meant to change.
