Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Wheel’ On NBC, A Game Show Where Contestants Get “Expert” Help From Six Celebrities

NBC has decided to air its latest game show, The Wheel, five nights per week over the next two weeks. So while you’re wrapping gifts, packing the returns to Amazon of the gifts you got, or pounding down leftover egg nog, this celebrity-filled import from the UK will certainly fill your living room with noise. But is it a good game?

THE WHEEL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Host Michael McIntyre stands in the middle of a huge wheel, with six celebrities in big chairs rotating around him.

The Gist: On The Wheel, the six celebrities serve as experts in one of six categories. In another spinning wheel under the main wheel, three contestants go around and one randomly is selected to get raised to the main wheel. That’s who starts building the bank by answering questions.

In the first episode, the celebrities were Christina Ricci (Classic Movies), Amber Ruffin (Late Night Hosts), Mark McGrath (The ’90s), Steve Kornacki (Elections), Cat Cora (Greek Food) and Todrick Hall (Beyoncé). The contestant chooses the category he or she wants to try first. If the wheel lands on the “golden” expert, the money for the pot is doubled from $5000 to $10,000. They also select a “shutdown” person. If the wheel lands on that person, the contestant is off the wheel and goes back under, with hope that they get another chance.

The wheel is spun, which is basically all of the celebrities spinning around, with the pointer standing still. If it’s not the shutdown person, the celebrity can help the contestant answer the general knowledge question in that category. If the contestant is right, money is added to the bank and the category comes off the wheel. If the contestant is wrong, they go back under, with hope that they get another chance. All the while, the celebrities are answering the questions on tablets in front of them; a “perfect wheel” nets another $5000 for the bank.

Once all the categories are cleared, whichever of the three contestants that is on the wheel is able to answer the cash-out final question. The celebrities’ answers are taken into account here: If the contestant wants help from the celeb with the most right answers, the pot is halved; if they use the contestant who came in the middle of the list, the pot stays as is; if they use the contestant that had the least right answers, the pot is doubled.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Take Hollywood Squares and combine it with a massive wheel and the “Phone A Friend” lifeline on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and you get The Wheel.

Our Take: The main problem plaguing The Wheel is that there’s a lot of gadgetry, but not a lot of game play. It makes a show that’s supposed to look like it moves fast, with McIntyre and the celebrities bebopping along with loud music as the wheel spins for each question, into one that moves achingly slow. At minimum, 7 questions will be asked during the entire hour, and maybe if there are some mistakes we’ll get up to maybe 12 questions. That means there’s a whole lot of filler as things spin and pregnant pauses become even more pregnant before answers are revealed.

It also doesn’t help that the questions are stupefyingly easy, like “On what late night show did Bill Clinton play the saxophone?” or “How many seats in the House of Representatives were up for election in 2022?” But it did seem like right answers were in short supply in the first episode. In fact, we weren’t sure who was in a better position to answer these questions, the contestants or celebrities. When Ricci said that Air Jordan was created in the ’90s, and the contestant agreed, we wanted to tear what little hair we have out of our middle-aged heads.

One of the reasons why Millionaire was so brilliant right out of the gate almost a quarter-century ago (!) was because the questions started out easy, then got exponentially harder as the contestant went up the money ladder. In The Wheel, the questions are all pretty much the same difficulty, with maybe the cash-out question being half-a-level more difficult, so the risks to the contestant on the wheel are either a bad-luck spin or cluelessness about something that most people above 35 should know. That’s no formula for a successful show.

Yet, the show was a hit in the UK, and NBC made the right move bringing McIntyre, the host of the original, over to the US version. He’s got the right upbeat energy for this format, and is still able to riff on contestant stories and/or how the celebrities react. He always seemed to have a funny line when a particular contestant would always shut down Steve Kornacki for every category, for instance.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Don’t want to spoil what happens, but there’s no hugging and talking between contestant and celebrities. Everyone stays in their seats. It’s a very COVID-friendly arrangement.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Amber Ruffin because we like her a lot and, well, you’ll realize why by the end of the first episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: Joking that it’s an NBC requirement, McIntyre has a catchphrase for the contestant selection. But it’s pretty bad: “It’s a one-in-three… who’s it gonna be?”

Our Call: SKIP IT. NBC is running The Wheel five nights per week for two weeks, sort of like how Millionaire started in this country in the late ’90s. It may attract an audience who just wants something mind-numbing to watch while wrapping last-minute presents or coming down from an egg nog high. But anyone who takes a close look will wonder why a show that has slow game play and way-too-easy questions was ever a hit to begin with.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.