Season 40 Entire Season Recap/Review | Buy a Vowel Boards (2024)

It's your CWOF recapper here again, hello! Another 195 syndicated episodes have aired, and we're entering another summer hiatus. I think it's best to start off with some words from the show's new executive producer, Bellamie Blackstone:

Let's do a quick breakdown of the things mentioned in passing:

• Bigger Prizes: The cars definitely felt more XL than before, starting the season with a $51,540 BMW, going up to a $51,540 Ford Mustang GT. In addition, the Prize Puzzle trips have grown in size; December 9's trip is worth $17,800, a high in over 5 seasons.
• Bigger Puzzles: Most certainly. We had two puzzles this season over 42 letters: KATE WINSLET AND LEONARDO DICAPRIO STAR IN TITANIC and SPECTACULAR INTERNATIONAL BOX OFFICE BLOCKBUSTER - this has only happened one season before, back in Season 22, with two bonus clues. In fact, the puzzles have been so long at times, that October 11th's Bonus Round puzzle, PANCAKES MADE FROM SCRATCH, had more letters than any other puzzle that night.
• The most money [ever given away] on syndicated Wheel of Fortune: This appears to have happened - by my count, $11,209,493 was given out, beating S32's $11,185,383 (+ $1,700 due to scoreboard weirdness)
• Starting the season with XL: For 24 shows this season, the game was modified to have an XL Wedge, which acted like a combination of Big Bucks on Press Your Luck and the Star Token - if a player called a correct letter on the wedge, they not only got the TDV per letter, but they got an XL Token. If the contestant took the token to the Bonus Round and solved the final puzzle, they won $40,000 on top of what was in the envelope. Also, one face-up MDW was placed on the wheel in Round 1, and two in Rounds 2-3 - if taken to the end, two million dollar envelopes would be placed on the wheel. To inject even more money, every Prize Puzzle had $5,000 cash attached. (Also, the teachers had to wait until week 3 to get their turn lol)
• New LED Screen: Gone are the 52 monitors stacked on top of each other and here is a giant LED screen with LIDAR sensors dotting the perimeter sensing when Vanna touches the board. In addition, the graphics got a slight refresh, from a new font, slightly reworked intro, new category and contestant score strips, a Wild Card appearing next to the contestant's score, and new letter bubbles.
• More surprises: The big one is that some of the COVID-era changes get reverted, allowing Pat to come closer to the contestants, the removal of the white things, the return of audiences, and the return of civilian and celebrity team weeks.

Just going by the numbers, as said previously, this season had $11,209,493 given out, a record. Contestants also batted an average of .400 a season, with 78 wins to 117 - tying Season 31 in Bonus Round wins.

In terms of winnings, the season-best were XL Week 1 ($424,320), XL Week 4 ($419,901), and Winter Hideaways ($397,442). For civilian winnings, the season-worst were America's Game 4 ($167,645), Veterans Week ($185,209), and WWE Week ($193,950).

We had 8 Million Dollar Bonus Rounds, up from the previous two seasons with 6. In addition, across the 24 XL episodes, 4 had the XL bonus in play. XL was won three times.

25 Triple Toss-Ups this season were swept, giving an extra $100,000 to contestants.

Players from the red podium won the most this season, a whopping 75 times. Yellow was behind with 63, and blue came to show 57 times.

Good, bad, ugly time of Season 40:

We had a whopping seven people walk out this season with over $100,000 in winnings! Two of them were the traditional way with a $100,000 envelope hit, on 1/19 and 5/29. Three were boosted by the XL Wedge, with $40,000 and another Bonus Round prize on 9/14, 1/31, and 5/5. And although it happened on an XL show, Mike on 5/1 managed to break six figures without hitting the XL wedge once!

Who was the seventh? Why, none other than Ricky Gilbert! He swept his first game on 12/20 and came back for a special Fan Favorites episode against the other man who swept this season, Fred Fletcher-Jackson, to amass a two-day total of $108,570! Fred came close to being an eighth person, but was just an $2,250 and an UPGRADE short.

Speaking of Fan Favorites, we had a return to form with some of the theme weeks, with Fan Favorites being the first invitational week since Some of the Greats back in Season 12. Also returning are a solo Teen Week (last seen during Season 13), WWE Week (the first civilian/celebrity pairing week since Season 25 - and the first Friday Finals since Season 16), Sweethearts Week (the first team week since the pandemic), and another grandparents week in Grand Getaways.

The show has also been looser on its editing, allowing two sets of "null" Final Spins to get to air - one during College Week, and the other improving the resume for another Fan Favorite.

Speaking of returning contestants, we had one returning contestant due to a production error - Darcy on 4/28. Although specifics weren't given, there was a $30,000 arguable call during the Speed-Up, and in light of the CHOOSING THE RIGHT WORD fiasco that happened shortly after, Wheel probably became more lenient.

As per tradition, I try to thank everyone who played this season who came and checked out these boards, which include, but probably aren't limited to:

eero 9/29

carpediemed 11/24

rickyg 12/20 and 5/11

bearishplains 1/24

CDixie (round 2!) 5/8

emilburp (round 2!) 5/9

Congrats on all your winnings!

Now, time for the bad:

I mean, it was inevitable that the Bonus Round wheel wouldn't be as hot as last season; in total, we had seven grand-prize hits. Two wins is great, but we had four $100,000 loses on 9/13, 11/15, 4/6, and 5/18.

Around here, we colloquially use the term "skunked" whenever all five Bonus Round puzzles are lost in a week. We were skunked four times: Veterans Week (11/7-11/22 - but I honestly can't blame them when SQUEAKY HINGE as AtH, LAVISH GALA, and WE LOVE PIZZA happen back-to-back-to-back), Secret Santa Week 1 (12/5-9/22), WWE Week (3/27-31/23), and America's Game 4 (4/10-14/23). In addition, we didn't have a week where all five Bonus Round puzzles were won, which is made especially painful when we were one additional letter away from that happening during Secret Santa Week 2.

Unlike last year, where I had two ugly puzzles that painted the state of Wheel during Season 39, the only major mistake I can think of this season was FREGH TROPICAL FRUIT from Monday of Teen Week. I waffled about talking about it or not because I felt it was overblown compared to the ANOTHER FEATHER IN YOUR CAP puzzle last season, but at least things ended up well for Khushi.

It was bound to happen with more Toss-Ups than ever before, but with the six Toss-Ups unsolved on 10/14 (FRIENDLY FACE), 11/18 (STAYING UP LATE), 12/2 (MEETING UP), 12/29 (LEGAL EAGLE), 4/26 (RARE BOOK), and 5/24 (TEAM EFFORT), that sets a new record for most unsolved puzzles in a season.

Wheel lost T-Mobile Tuesdays as a sponsor. I guess that's less money for the show.

A lot of the things hinted about this season happened, but one that didn't was the return of road shows. I've heard things off the record that it might have been moved to next season, but just like the "tournament" not happening last season, I have to mention it in passing.

Ugly time:

During XL Week 1, the writers decided to put the EENIE MEENIE MINY MOE rhyme as an XL puzzle. I, personally, wouldn’t have touched that Round 1 puzzle due to the beginning words being really weird to spell, but there's enough of a racist history that I believe it is going to be the first episode pulled from the summer reruns since the week someone suddenly noticed the center wall had a plantation the entire week.

I talked about six $100,000 hits, but mentioned seven big hits. We had a million-dollar loss on 9/27. I guess it's the first time it got hit since 1/16/19.

The category selection diversity has gotten so bad, that Emil made fun of it during his Fan Favorites run. This season, 36 contestants were given the option of Thing(s)/Phrase/WAYD?, and 178 of 195 had at least two of those categories as options. This is an increase from Season 39's 24 and 147, and much greater than the 2 and 28 back in Season 35. In fact, here's a chart of categories, number of times offered, number of times chosen, percent chosen, wins, and win percentage.

We're also seeing a bit of change of the old guard. Before the season began,John Lauderdale left before audiences filmed again and had his job taken over by Jimmy of the Clue Crew. Midseason,Jackie Lamatis left, a piece of news I learned by a tweet from Pat while on set, andBob Ennis left a little bit while ago. There might be other notable staff I'm forgetting, but it seems like the show's transitioning more than just the EP.

That's pretty much it for syndie Wheel, but that's not the only Wheel-related news we've had. Rapid fire semi-chronological order:

• As part of a deal with Pluto, 250 Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy episodes were put on their platform. In August, 250 S34-37 episodes were put on, including some of the former Netflix rips (and some glitches), but a refresh in late March added 100 episodes from Seasons 20-30, including some remotes and the first million dollar win.
• Celebrity Wheel of Fortune definitely had a Season 3. I remember they had Ken Jennings, Mayim Bialik, Vanna White, RuPaul, Snoop Dogg, and Jack Black, I guess. I think the million was lost at some point? I know 5 Bonus Round wins across 28 games is rough, but it's been picked up for a Season 4.
• Wheel of Fortune Live! I had a fun time for the show I went to, and the tour is going to continue next autumn. Honestly, at times it's more energetic than the actual audience, so if you go in assuming you're not getting picked, it's a great night.
• IGT extended its Wheel of Fortune license for another 10 years.
• A kids' version of the show, potentially involving stunts like Wheel 2000, has recently been announced.

There's a lot to look forward to Wheelwise in the upcoming season. Part of me feels like on the whole, this season felt lobsided; when there were highs (like the XL weeks, Fan Favorites, Winter Hideaways, Teen Week), the show was spectacular, but aside from standout weeks, the energy was mostly absent elsewhere? If the show could stick to those highs, the show would probably be the best it's ever been. Enough about me though; what do you think about this season? Was there anything major that I missed? Favorite episode? Least-favorite Phrase puzzle? Favorite vowel (it's still w)? I want to hear your thoughts below.

Before I sign off, I want to give one final shout-out to mechamind and logicman27 . I'm the CWOF recapper, but when it comes to all 200+ episodes a year, it's taken an entire recap team. Both Adams have stepped to the plate and written multitudes of episodes. Their contributions have been appreciated, and I wish them all the best for all future endeavors. Thank you two so much for what you have done to this website.

Until next time,
-9821

The XL weeks were great, though I think they could've stood to have the XL wedge on the wheel the entire season. Between that and having two MDWs without the Bankrupts on the wheel it changed in-game strategy somewhat, especially when choosing whether or not to go on the Express when hit.

I would say the highlights were the return of team/couples weeks and the fun theme weeks like Star Wars and WWE (even though I'm not a wrestling fan), plus Fan Favorites week which hopefully becomes a regular or at least every other year thing. It was especially nice to see the first same sex couple on, and hopefully there will be more in future couples weeks.

For all the hype of the new puzzleboard, it was kind of meh. They definitely didn't use it as much as they could've. I really hope next season they add more graphics to use it more.

Another low this season was the overall lack of bonus round success, they had some real doozies of puzzles this season. It was especially dismal in CWOF.

So overall it was a nice season for the 40th anniversary. A solid effort from Bellamie. It would be great if they go back on the road at least once next season (NYC please!).