A Big Welcome For Million Dollar Wheel Of Fortune…

Tonight was the start of a bitter war TV analysts have been waiting for with the all important News lead-in’s of Seven’s Deal Or No Deal and now Nine’s Million Dollar Wheel Of Fortune.

Deal Or No Deal has tried to keep viewers from switching loyalties by offering a double shot at the top prize of $200,000 by removing the 50c case, while like its name sake Million Dollar Wheel was offering the chance for someone to win $1 Million as well as a home viewer winning $5,000 a night.

If you have read what I saw at the test or pilot episode, you will notice that there have a few minor tweaks to what took place on that night, as was expected and expressed to us at the time. First of all at the test episode before the opening titles they had a game for the contestants to win a bonus amount of money, played in the same fashion as what they call the “toss-up”. Obviously the hosts have not been introduced yet so this was controlled by the voice over artist Simon Diaz, after which the opening titles would roll. This part it seems has been scrapped and the show directly starts off with the opening titles with Tim and Kelly coming out to get the show started.

The contestants are then introduced by Tim, two of which in this first episode were contestants on the test episode. Tamara on the red area was not present at the test with Corey on yellow and Denise on the blue contestants at the test with Denise winning that night.

To start off it must be a determined who gets to spin the wheel first and to do this they have what is called a “Toss Up” with the person solving the puzzle spinning first. Round one also has the addition of the million dollar wedge which was also not present in the test run, this enables the person to spin this up and if they win the game they will play for $1 million in the last round.

To get things started for round two they have what is called a “cash up” where by the person who solves the puzzle will get $500 in cash. Also in addition a surprise is added to the wheel, if the contestant get this they win a special prize, and tonight it was spun up with the surprise being a new car.

The final round hasn’t changed much from what I described in the pilot episode with the original prize round containing a $200,000 wedge on either side of the car, this time round that has gone and the $200,000 has its own place on the wheel.

While the contestant contemplates what letters they want to choose as stated in the pilot episode they have implemented the throw to the news room, the same as which Deal Or No Deal does.

So there we have it the new generation of Wheel of Fortune in Australia, it was evident that Tim was nervous and lost his place a few times but that would hopefully wear off as time goes by. It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks if this show helps the ailing National Nine News and claws some ground back from Seven.

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