Why Everyone You Know Is Watching 'Wheel of Fortune'
We are maybe possibly turning the Covid corner, the lights of a world we remember are shining on the horizon, and my God are we tired. Burned out en masse. Weary. Mentally spun out. The clearest sign of our national level of post-Trump, pre-hugs, mid-vax, business-sweatpant, thirteenth-month-of-a-mismanaged-pandemic fatigue is this: ratings for Wheel of Fortune in the second half of March are up nearly 25 percent from the first half. As cable news ratings tumble, viewers are opting for ease and comfort, and Wheel is the top-rated syndicated show in America. It is a triumph for the lowbrow, a win on the level of solving the bonus round puzzle, ZOOT SUIT, when just the S and the Ts showing.
The Wheel has met its moment, and I am not ashamed to say it: I, too, have become a Wheel-Watcher.
It’s always been there, of course, and its candy-colored set and accessible puzzles take us back to our youth, to dinners eaten on a TV tray in the family room as a special treat. Pat Sajak and Vanna White—and, briefly, Rolf Benirschke but we do not talk about it—have always been there, a genial uncle we stopped following on Facebook and a charming aunt with a great wardrobe. The Wheel will neither challenge nor upset you; you do not have time to emotionally invest in the contestants, and you will forget everything you have seen ninety seconds after the credits roll. Even the cars and cash amounts are, like, fine. It is perfect late-lockdown entertainment. It is all we can handle right now.
Everyone is beyond the end of their ropes. Here, for instance, is what my daily schedule looks like: my partner and I wake up around six, briefly putter over coffee while we feed the dog and the cat, decamp to our workspaces, and stay there for twelve straight hours. Working from home means always working, and with both of us taking on as many extra gigs as we can, because we have seen how quickly the bottom can drop out, we are shot out of a cannon into a busy workday about five seconds after we open our eyes. But at 6 pm on the nose we clock out. We each pour two fingers of bourbon, break out the pub cheese and the Trader Joe’s crackers, cook dinner, and catch up. By 7:30, we are on the couch, fed and boozed, not necessarily unable to think critically, but certainly unwilling.
Bring on the Wheel.
I am now so accustomed to this nightly routine, so fluent in the rules of the game, that I have a strong opinion on the Wheel of Fortune controversy of the day. On Wednesday night, a contestant named David Pederson was solving one of those Crossword puzzles, where the words intersect and connect to a theme. He said, “Sole, Flounder, Cod, and Catfish,” but here’s the thing: there was no "and" up there. Pat Sajak—and the ratings indicate that we all know this now—goes way out of his way to remind contestants to say only the words that are up there. Don't add any. There was no “and,” people, so his answer was technically incorrect. Twitter reacted badly, as Twitter is wont to do, but I’m Team Sajak on this one. We must have rules, otherwise the world is chaos, and I don’t know if you’ve looked outside lately, but the world is already chaos. Game shows in particular have to be strict; don’t you remember the movie Quiz Show from back when your brain functioned properly?
We missed this particular moment, because we had a couple of friends over to the backyard that evening. We sat at opposite ends of our outdoor dining table and yelled across it like we were in a conference room contesting a will. An hour or so in, they ran down the list of TV shows they’d been watching and were eager to discuss: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, WandaVision, The Flight Attendant. These shows sound interesting; they seem like they reward careful viewing, and unless one of their characters wins a three-day trip to Scottsdale for solving the What Are You Doing puzzle, TENDING MY GARDEN, our full commentary on them is nope, nope, and nope. Someday we will have the mental and emotional bandwidth, but now is not the time. That’s the real gold in this Golden Age of Television: the good shit will still be there when your head is ready for it.
Now, we have tried to appreciate more edifying entertainment in recent weeks, but it just did not take. HBOMax’s It’s A Sin, for example, is as up my alley as a show can possibly be: it’s gay, it’s British, it’s set in the ‘80s. I would not be surprised if a detailed breakdown of its target audience were actually just my headshot. So we tuned in, and it is of course extremely well done, and it is also clear right away that AIDS is going to claim pretty much every single one of the main characters in a way that rips my heart out and haunts me forever.
I don’t need that right now. Put on a Nautica half-zip, yell VERY LOVELY BOARDWALK at Pat Sajak, win a Kia Sorrento, and get out of my life.
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It is good that cable news network ratings are down. It means we are not as frightened and agitated as we were a month or two ago. We are no longer compelled to tune in and find out what new thing is going to kill us or embarrass us half to death anymore. That can only be interpreted as a very positive development. But boy, we sure did do that for the last year or five, and as we stop having to summon the will to push through another day, as we approach a safer, saner place, as we sit patiently between the Before and the After, it is all right to feel exhausted. Kick up your feet, buy yourself a vowel, or if that stimulus has hit your checking account, buy two. You're worth it.
Wheel of Fortune is all we can handle right now, and that’s okay. We won't be this bankrupt forever.
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