Season 34 Summary Thread

I feel like it was Season 33, Part 2, to be honest. There wasn't anything that beneficial to the season.

The Wheel layout stayed the same, "Big Money Week" was "Same Money Week", "Great American Cities" once again, no changes to any of the special wedges or Prize Puzzle (seriously, when will they realize that Express + Prize Puzzle = Skip to the Bonus Round already?)...

And then there's the Crossword. A good concept, but overdone, and obviously for budget reasons since it means skimping on multiples and often having that one tricky word with only single consonants that stumps the contestant that does most of the work. Not to mention the "Blank" puzzles are pretty much a way of bringing back Fill in the Blank without having to offer a bonus.


The Bonus Rounds have been infuriating to me this season. On the one hand, it's good that many contestants caught on to the GHPO strategy. But on the other hand, it feels like most of the Bonus Rounds have gone one of two ways this season:

1) With picks, puzzle reads "_A_ MACH_NE", contestant repeatedly guesses "CAR MACHINE, RAT MACHINE, TAX MACHINE, REAL MACHINE...", loses $50K.
2) With picks, puzzle reads "_ _ _ET _ _ _", contestant somehow solves "QUIET ZOO", wins $34K.

Even though it doesn't seem like it, S34 actually had more BR wins than S33 did (74 vs. 64 / 38% vs. 33%).


Then there was the sudden new music. It was a little off-putting to me at first, but I don't really mind it too much. The only new cue that I really dislike compared to its predecessor is the Bonus Wheel spin cue. I really miss the bass line of the old one. The poor dubbing of the cues on the 2017 Saturday reruns also came as a surprise, but I guess it wasn't their choice.

The puzzle writing overall has not improved. More theme stretching for the most part, still imbalanced pop culture puzzles, Headline, while now being used more, almost exclusive to sports and astronomy, Prize Puzzles getting more ridiculous, and so many puzzles at least partially repeated very shortly after their previous use, especially with adjectives in the Bonus Round (JUICY ____ being used twice, VACUUM BAGS being used only one season after VACUUM-PACKED BAGS, PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY/IES used only a few months apart). However, it did seem like more episodes this season had TU1's that were either not themed at all or not themed so blatantly, which was nice, and surely not all of these were the result of a thrown-out TU1. Despite all this, the season finale episode's writing was good overall, IMO.

All that being said, S34 did have its fair share of fun, genuine moments, like that one contestant who ran away with his forfeited wedges, and the whole bit with the MDW and million dollar envelope on the season finale.


So, Season 34? Nothing too special... Some good moments here and there like every season, but otherwise, meh...

For me, it's like Season 28. In Season 28, they kept the same wheel as Season 27. And in Season 34, they kept the same wheel as Season 33. They changed some bonus wheel amounts in Season 28 and 34. Season 28 $30,000 became the smallest amount on the bonus wheel and in Season 34 $34,000 became the smallest amount on the bonus wheel. They changed the music as well. In Season 28, they remixed the Speed-Up music and it was used until the end of the first half of Season 34. In the second half of Season 34, they changed every single cue. Another thing about Season 28 and 34 is the $100,000 losses. They had a lot of 100K losses in Season 28. And a few losses in Season 34. That's how Season 34 is like Season 28.

Active season 34 main game categories:

AROUND THE HOUSE
BEFORE & AFTER
BEST SELLER (used once on 3/10/17)
CHARACTER
CHARACTERS
COLLEGE LIFE
CROSSWORD
EVENT
EVENTS
FOOD & DRINK
FUN & GAMES
HEADLINE
IN THE KITCHEN
LANDMARK
LANDMARKS
LIVING THING
LIVING THINGS
MOVIE QUOTE (used once on 10/18/16)
MOVIE TITLE
OCCUPATION
ON THE MAP
PEOPLE
PERSON
PHRASE
PLACE
PLACES
PROPER NAME
QUOTATION
RHYME TIME
SAME LETTER
SAME NAME
SHOW BIZ
SONG/ARTIST (used twice on 1/3/17 & 6/7/17)
SONG LYRICS
SONG TITLE
STAR & ROLE (used three times on 2/28/17, 5/22/17, & 5/29/17)
THING
THINGS
TITLE
TV QUOTE (used once on 1/11/17)
TV TITLE (used three times on 1/3/17, 4/24/17, & 6/2/17)
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?



Active season 34 Bonus Round categories :

EVENT (used once)
FOOD & DRINK (used three times)
LIVING THINGS (used once)
ON THE MAP (used three times)
PEOPLE (used 3 times)
PERSON (used 5 times)
PLACE (used 6 times)
SHOW BIZ (used once)
WHAT ARE YOU DOING? (used 9 times)


All other Bonus Round puzzles were either THING, THINGS, or PHRASE.

Actually, I counted 14 instances of that category.

Odd.

It felt like the show was over-budget, particularly in the latter part of the season. Not sure why. Hopefully they are saving up for Season 35.

I'd really like to see the move the express to Round 1. Having it in round 3 when it's already a prize puzzle is a bit too much. It would spice up round 1 a bit more given that the 1/2 cars don't appear until round 2.

One word? Boring.