[JAS84]

Do wonder if every puzzle has been lifted from the US version.

If they are, they need to check them properly, make sure there's no Americanisms, like terminology not used in British English, and spelling differences. For example, if a puzzle said "MAGGIE'S PACIFIER", that wouldn't be suitable, because we call those dummies. Likewise if a puzzle said "SENSE OF HUMOR", that'd be correct in the US, but wrong here because we spell colour with a U.

I don't suppose there's a WOF equivalent to Jeopardy!'s fansite J!Archive?

[James2001]

I doubt Sony care about flogging an 8 episode UK series to a US audience when they get paid millions to produce the 200 odd new episodes a year for the syndicated version.

I also doubt any of these criticisms will be taken on board for it's second series - even though ratings have dropped I've no doubt it'll come back, and I suspect they'll see the solution to any ratings drop as being more celebrity episodes. Looks like they're saving those (2 out of the 8 are celeb episodes) for the end of the series.

Sadly I could see that being the thinking... Ratings weren't low because it's too Americanised and different to connect with a UK audience, it's because there aren't enough TOWIE stars and Youtubers as contestants...

[gottago]

It is odd that the phrases are so Americanised, particularly given that they all have to be signed off by the ITV commissioner who really should be an expert in what an ITV audience would understand and want from the puzzles.

[Johnr]

"Hanging out with my six cats" was a new low

[Jon]

"Hanging out with my six cats" was a new low

Yes it’s just a random sentence. This is not the Wheel of Fortune UK audiences know and tolerate. The crap music is fine, the lack of a letter turner is fine. But it needed to be actual phrases, TV shows, films and famous people etc for the puzzles.

Having only watched the first episode with random sentences it’s much more difficult to play along as a viewer because you’re only getting the answers as the contestants solve the puzzle. Part of the fun of the original UK version was seeing the answer ages before the contestants solved it.

[James2001]

It is odd that the phrases are so Americanised, particularly given that they all have to be signed off by the ITV commissioner who really should be an expert in what an ITV audience would understand and want from the puzzles.

All they have to do is tune into Challenge at lunchtimes to see the sort of puzzles they should be doing.

[Brekkie]

Exactly. "A cat with nine lives" makes sense, something somebody somewhere may have randomly said at some point isn't. Indeed I'm surprised these Quizmania style answers get past the adjudicators.

It's part of the reason Jeopardy doesn't work for me either by not having specific questions for the answers given. It comes across as lazy writing.

[Nobby]

No Sunday repeat this week. I'd got quite in to watching the repeat each week to see if Graham Norton erroneously said "The Masked Singer is next" as part of the outro.

He did, every week.

Presumably those outros will become "lost media" at some point as Wheel of Fortune is either repeated on Challenge or forgotten about and never broadcast again.

If they didn't record a generic outro at the time it's going to be difficult to edit out in a clean way unlike the bit in The Weakest Link where Romesh Ranganathan tells me to press red to watch a different episode to the one I am half way through watching.

[James2001]

The fact we had a puzzle that the contestant was literally unable to solve until they'd literally unveiled the whole thing by buying vowels tells you how ridiculous these "answers" are.

[Andrew]

Sunday traditions: “Making a Fancy Breakfast”