‘Wheel of Fortune’ behind‑the‑scenes secret blows up after fans notice odd editing cuts: ‘That first spin...’
Host Ryan Seacrest had a rocky start when he replaced host Pat Sajak in season 42 of 'Wheel of Fortune'. With only the second episode in, many viewers started to notice the cracks in what otherwise seemed like a clean-cut debut. During the episode, some eagle-eyed viewers noticed an inconsistency in editing as players were spinning the wheel. Sharing the clip of the episode where contestants, Promise Anderson, Andrew Pollock, and Erica's spins are purposefully skipped, fans took to Reddit to address the confusion. In a Reddit thread, a viewer of the show asked, "Anybody notice the spin edit tonight? I know we’ve seen it on the Final Spin, but I never expected that in any other round.
An anonymous Reddit user who claimed to be on the show during the shoot of the episode said, "I was at the taping. They edit out whenever there are three (or six) lost turns in a row that don't add letters or change anyone's score." Referring to the color they wore on the show, he added, "Blue hit the Bankrupt (and lost no money to it), Red spun $700 and called a wrong S, then Yellow spun $850 and called a wrong R. This is why they will never show the used letters on screen. They also edited out nine lost turns from the round before this." Agreeing to it, another Reddit user added, "Yeah, it looks like that first spin was going to land on the bankrupt! I assumed what you said, but it’s cool to hear from someone who got to watch it live!"
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Noticing that the pattern often repeats, a netizen posted, "They've always done this. This one was just really noticeable, but it's far from an abnormal practice. They can't guarantee multiple rounds and a bonus round and commercials will fit into a 30-minute window and the commercials aren't going anywhere, so unless there's something funny or otherwise entertaining about them, some non-score-changing bankrupts and lost turns will get edited out, as will excessive zero-letter picks."
While a viewer also slammed the show of sucking out the fun, due to all the edits and wrote, "Truthfully, 'Wheel of Fortune' is no fun anymore, especially with all the editing out of things on the show, probably to prevent embarrassment to contestants on live television, something that never happened before until the late 1990’s when we would see on a daytime version around the 80’s that there would be 9 straight turns where no letter was guessed correctly and 4 straight turns where lose a turn or a bankrupt would be hit, very awkward."
This wasn't the first time fans called out the show for the errors. In season 2 episode 1, viewers noticed that Seacrest granted points to a contestant, Terry Watson mispronounced the third puzzle, "Vine-ripened tomatoes," in the Food and Drink category. But Seacrest didn't blink. Despite the mispronunciation that was obvious to many viewers tuning in at home, Seacrest seemed to accept the response and granted Watson the win. This led to many die-hard fans airing out their frustrations online, as reported by The Mirror.