S40 Taping Report: January 12, 2023

I arrived at like 10AM and spent that whole hour of waiting watching an episode of BattleBots. There's the standard wristband procedure of contestant guests, VIPs, and also the Eventbrite people got either a green or blue wristband. The rest of the audience got a yellow wristband.

Fast forward to walking inside the studio, there are two doors leading to the audience. Production seats everyone from the further one. I peeked through the first podium and saw the Bloomin' Onion. I braced myself for a generic week taping, but after entering through the second passageway, I saw the XL wedge on the wheel.

Time to think big. The audience was definitely more than the last time I'd attended. As always, Jim came out and started warming up the audience with his announcer voice and awful jokes. Jim is awesome. It's worth the price of admission just to see him warm up the crowd. Eventually, I told Jim that I had been to the show during essentially season premiere week, and he "welcomed me back".

Unlike last time, where the show was ironing out the kinks with the puzzleboard and such, I don't recall any major stopdowns happening. I think I saw the puzzleboard glitch once after a puzzle was solved, but it was a quick flicker. Aside from the expected problems (like Vanna misreading the cue card to introduce the XL Prize Puzzle giveaway or Pat laughing over a couple things), the only thing that caused confusion for a minute was the accidental reveal of a category and puzzle setup before a Mystery Round plug. The puzzle wasn't thrown out.

At the start of the Monday game, they played the intro and the XL Week intro. Rewatching one of the previous weeks, I think they updated the intro to include contestants from XL Week 2. There were no changes to the gameplay compared to previous XL Weeks. During the first commercial break, Vanna addressed the audience and asked if anyone had any questions. No one did. This was the only time Vanna talked to the audience in the first taping session. I don't really have much to say aside from gameplay spoilers besides vaguely hinting that some unanswered questions about how the week worked were answered. Since I was seated right next to Jim's booth, I thought I could hear him record the lines for all the trips during the episode. Maybe it was just pickups, since swear I heard something about "Riviera Maya", and I don't recall a trip being offered there at all?

I don't recall anything out of the ordinary happening during game two. Jim did start to talk to the audience about the many people who work on the show, starting with Jimmy, but working his way to the sound people and the independent lawyer that supervises everything. There were a couple of people from Germany and Finland sitting in my row that had their chance to shine during the commercial breaks.

I believe there were full breaks after the first and second games; I just didn't get out of my seat during the first one. During the latter, I got water, bumped into one of the future contestants going backstage, and wished her good luck.

Game three comes and goes. If more of that game comes back to me, I'll post about it in the recap thread. I don't have any real insights other than the Commissary just closed right after the episode got out at around 3:10 PM, and Pat and Vanna thanked the audience for coming. The people who got free food lined up in one line off to the side, while the rest of us were escorted back to the lot.

The check-in line for the second taping had already formed by the time I got there, so I just jumped right in. Behind me, there was a guy wearing one of those retired "Wheel of Fortune Champion" t-shirts. He was socializing, asking another leaving group if there were technical issues since the show was supposed to start at 3:15. From his t-shirt, I figured he was a big Wheel fan, so I blatantly told him it was an XL week. A minute later, a member of the audience staff talked to him about the shirt, and when he said he was the "biggest winner of Season 37", it clicked. I'm sorry for being so awkward around you, wheelmasterdave , and thanks for the photo!

Heading back into the studio again, this time I was seated at the leftmost chair in the second row (or realistically the front row, since they still keep the front row vacant for some reason); Dave ended up behind me. As Jim started talking to the audience, a man four or five chairs to my right introduced himself to Jim. Along with his name, he seemed thrilled to introduce himself to the announcer, and got excited when he heard the America's Game episode was near his birthday. Soon after that, Dave got to tell his story in front of the whole audience, about how he won $113K and taped right before COVID hit. I think that brought some of the energy up going into the Thursday episode.

It also helped that honestly, the Thursday episode had the most fun set of contestants. The three apparently agreed to a pact to have fun beforehand, were holding hands (for a prayer?) right before the cameras rolled, and during the game, had fun improvisation with each other. You'll know what I mean when the episode airs. I believe Vanna addressed the audience for the only time this session also during this game. Although there was a pause between the Thursday and Friday episodes, because production was about an hour behind (the plan was to finish by 5:45 and it was about 5 when episode 4 of 6 finished), they didn't do a full break after this episode; people were instructed to go to the bathroom before the show or hold it for two episodes.

The Friday game went smoothly, up until the Triple Toss-Up. Without getting too far into spoiler territory, the theme was three different gerunds followed by the same noun. The third puzzle came up, and after two letters, one in a critical spot, a contestant rang in. Right after the contestant rang in, and a little bit before the contestant started the solve, the soon-to-be birthday person blurted out the answer. His party and several audience members stared at him. One of the audience coordinators leaned over the railing and talked with someone on set, and I hadn't noticed Jimmy used his hands before, but he was sliding his hand in front if his throat, like a signal to "cut". Meanwhile, the game immediately transitioned to the Speed Up round. Ultimately, the puzzle was kept in, but after the Bonus Round, Lee, who's worked with the show for over 20 years, gave the party a stern talking.

The last time an America's Game week had an XL show, the graphics were the same as the other XL episodes. The sixth show had the America's Game graphics, but also with the XL logo (so the center screen had America's Game and the XL logo under it, the turntable read America's Game XL during the intro, etc.). The XL Wedge, the face-up Million Dollar Wedges, and the vacation giveaway were still in play. At this point, I kind of was tuned out and more whispering to Dave about how the sausage was made than focusing on the show, so thank you for dealing with my dumb non-sequitur about [SPOILERS] and discussing [SPOILERS].