Post by wheelfan4life on Jan 23, 2022 15:54:22 GMT -5
With all the negative talk Harry Friedman's gotten on here for how bad his tenure producing Wheel of Fortune got, that makes me wonder something. When in your opinion did the show really start to decline under his watch? Because in my opinion he wasn't always horrible at producing Wheel.
He did introduce some interesting new elements such as the Jackpot round, the Toss-Up puzzles, the Mystery round, the Wild Card, and more. On the other hand, some of his ideas weren't too great, examples of his bad ideas being reducing the wheel to one template the whole show (though I don't mind this change too much I understand why a lot of fans don't like it), removing any four digit dollar values that weren't the top dollar value, reducing the Bonus Round prize pool to just cash and cars, and of course the dreaded Prize/Trip Puzzle (though it wasn't too bad when it was a weekly thing as opposed to a daily thing).
In my opinion, Harry's last great season producing Wheel was Season 25 (2007-08). After that I name three seasons as candidates for when the show jumped the shark.
Season 26: When the show jumped on the Millionaire bandwagon and replaced the $10,000 wedge with a million dollar wedge that was often misunderstood by the general public. Though it and the next season aren't that bad and I'd still be interested in watching any episode from them especially over an episode from today.
Season 28: When the show disrespected the recently diseased Charlie O'Donnell by dubbing over him in his final 40 episodes as announcer.
Season 29: When the Prize/Trip Puzzle was moved permanently to Round 3 thus making it more formulaic and giving it more an impact on who won the game (it was at least more tolerable to me when it was always in any of the first three rounds randomly).
What about y'all? When do you think Wheel started to decline under Harry's watch?
He did introduce some interesting new elements such as the Jackpot round, the Toss-Up puzzles, the Mystery round, the Wild Card, and more. On the other hand, some of his ideas weren't too great, examples of his bad ideas being reducing the wheel to one template the whole show (though I don't mind this change too much I understand why a lot of fans don't like it), removing any four digit dollar values that weren't the top dollar value, reducing the Bonus Round prize pool to just cash and cars, and of course the dreaded Prize/Trip Puzzle (though it wasn't too bad when it was a weekly thing as opposed to a daily thing).
In my opinion, Harry's last great season producing Wheel was Season 25 (2007-08). After that I name three seasons as candidates for when the show jumped the shark.
Season 26: When the show jumped on the Millionaire bandwagon and replaced the $10,000 wedge with a million dollar wedge that was often misunderstood by the general public. Though it and the next season aren't that bad and I'd still be interested in watching any episode from them especially over an episode from today.
Season 28: When the show disrespected the recently diseased Charlie O'Donnell by dubbing over him in his final 40 episodes as announcer.
Season 29: When the Prize/Trip Puzzle was moved permanently to Round 3 thus making it more formulaic and giving it more an impact on who won the game (it was at least more tolerable to me when it was always in any of the first three rounds randomly).
What about y'all? When do you think Wheel started to decline under Harry's watch?
