While the new season of Jeopardy! has been the talk of social media amid a very awkward week of work from now-former host Mike Richards, Wheel of Fortune also embarked on a new season this week. And while the show isn’t changing its host anytime soon, it is making a big change in its gameplay. No, not the music.
In a video the show posted this week, Sajak was interviewed by his daughter, Maggie, about what’s going on with the show’s final spin. Ordinarily, the show tries to get through as many puzzles as time will allow. And when they get near the end of a taping, play stops on the current puzzle and Sajak will do a “final spin” that sets the dollar amount players will get for puzzle letters until that current board is solved and the game ends.
This season, though, marks the first time that Sajak is not the one making that spin. Sajak joked that “the work was just too hard” to do the spin, much like Vanna White now simply touches letters on a digital screen instead of turning them on the board. But the actual reason is more practical.
“The reason is, honestly, I’ve never liked the idea of imposing the host on the game. That always bothered me a little bit,” Sajak said. “I was looking for a way around it and we finally got to talking and we said ‘Look, someone’s spinning the wheel anyway. We’ll save time and just let them spin it.”
That explanation certainly makes sense, and it does make things a bit faster overall. It’s not like anyone actually spinning has any real advantage, either: anyone spinning that wheel would likely want as much money on the letters to rack up a big score just like the other two contestants.
“So the final spin, at least as far as the host is concerned, is gone,” Sajak continued. “But the final spin remains, I’m just not doing it.”