March 16 2018 Recap (Shannon)

Hi! It’s Shannon from tonight’s show. I’ve been really anxious to hear your thoughts on the show. I appreciate the kind words. I thought I did the best I could and played a good game, and I’m glad you superstars of WOF saw that.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop kicking myself over “kayak”. I even saw the OCEAN KAYAKING episode! Argh! But it’s all good in the end. Would have been nice though. My husband was laid off in December so it definitely would have been a game changer for us.

All in all, I’m happy. We get to go to Antigua for our 10th anniversary. I don’t think we will be kayaking when we’re there. Stupid kayak.

I'm not surprised you were here right away, Mario.

Contestants playing the BR poorly is not new (not the case today of course). But this BR was a really good example of what has gone wrong in Season 35 - basically everything but the overuse of bleh adjectives, which surprisingly was not present tonight at all. But still:

-Reuse really hard words just months apart
-There is a key vowel that could give the player a shot still, but it goes uncalled. The player is then left with zero chance to win because no one ever calls the consonants in the hard word.
-Even if the key vowel is called, some players still fail as the word is really tough (_A_A_ER - MANAGER anyone? Kev suggested this as a common contestant answer. Although KAYAKING back in the day was won...)
(-In particular PHGO has been a recommended set of letters lately from here (sub P for B at occasions). A lot of puzzles this season have featured A over O, and I think this is an adjustment by the writing staff who is keeping their pulse on the fandom a bit more than we'd like.)
-The big prize manages to have a very lengthy 0-fer on the season due to terrible luck. Now there's a prime example of the reuse as a form of KAYAK has caused 1.1 million in lost winnings.

In particular it really has to be said - the category mix of the BR has naturally been much better with the choices. But there is no reason at all the writing should have suffered like this. I hear DPG playoffs is going to have choices and they have no shortage of good puzzles to use. Instead Wheel is content or so limited in their writing they're reusing the same tricks just because THING is barely the category now.

I think this is a natural devolution that's been coming for a bit, as there have been more repeats within a year or two elsewhere after they were pretty good at not repeating at all within 3-4 years. But it's still really inexcusable and is an insult to everyday watchers. It's become more of "spot the trap word" such as KAYAK, BAKE, the occasional QUIZ, AVID, etc etc. which is more of a "memorize the trap words" than actually playing Hangman. This was always present but it's blatantly terrible this season and that's why we're mad.

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On a lighter note, it was nice to have a surprise non-6th episode. I didn't expect a 6th city at all from this. On the downside, more mood whiplash occurred as we cut directly to the Denver closing clip on the heels of a terrible loss.

The bonus puzzle is not influenced on where the Bonus Wheel stops. It is determined well beforehand.

Yes. Presumably, all three possible puzzles are prepared in advance, because Vanna needs to know exactly where to stand at the board. There is actually evidence they reuse the unselected bonus puzzles as Round 4+ puzzles in later episodes.