Tuesday TV Touchbase: Wheel of Fortune and The Sandman

Wheel of Fortune has a million dollar wedge that I quite frankly cannot get too excited about. Because the odds of actually winning the million dollars are just so remote.

Here's what's gotta happen to get there.

1. Land on the million dollar wedge which is 1/3 the size of all the other wedges and has bankrupt wedges on either side of it.
2. Guess a letter that is available on the puzzle board.
3. Win that round.
4. Do NOT land on a bankrupt wedge for the rest of the game.
5. Win the whole game to advance to the bonus round.
6. Spin the bonus wheel and land on the wedge where the million dollar envelope has been hidden.
7. Solve the bonus puzzle.

ALL of that happening requires the biggest stroke of luck and is very unlikely to occur.

Until it does.

Last Tuesday, Christina Derevjanik of Stamford, Connecticut cleared all seven of those hurdles and won $1 million! 

Wow! 

In an interview, Derevjanik said, "As soon as the clock started, I just said the answer and for a second, I forgot about the million-dollar wedge. And then Ryan Seacrest opened it, and I was like, 'Oh, my goodness. This is real!'"   

Derevjanik won a total of $1,035,155, becoming only the fourth contestant ever to land the show's $1 million grand prize and the first since Ryan Seacrest took over as host.  

Over the course of the game, Derevjanik collected $35,155 in cash and prizes, including trips to Montana and Tokyo.

For the bonus round, she chose the category "Living Things" and correctly solved the puzzle, "PACK OF COYOTES."

During the show, Derevjanik teased that if she did win a lot of money, she might just quit her job Derevjanik revealed she has not quit her job.  After all, a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to. 

Meanwhile, ABC is already airing episodes of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune which is Ryan's first season for this edition of the show. Just as it was with Pat Sajak, Ryan seems to find running Wheel with celebrities is like herding cats.

I'm still wondering who these "celebrities" are.

_____________________

I finally finished off The Sandman on Netflix.  

The series could be ponderous and meandering at times but kudos to locking in the puzzle box of insidious machinations that drive Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, to his ultimate and fatal destiny.

Excellent casting of Jacob Anderson (Interview With the Vampire, Doctor Who) as Daniel, the new Dream of the Endless.

If nothing else, the show looks good with fantastic set pieces in Dream's castle and the surrounding realm of the Dreaming, the land of the Faerie and the kingdom of Hell, flashbacks to Victorian England and Ancient Greece, it all looks fantastic, the imagery of the comics brought to extraordinary life.

There was some consternation online about The Sandman ending after only 2 seasons, owing it seems to the controversial transgressions Neil Gaiman reportedly commited against women. Producer Alan Heinberg says the 2 seasons was always the plan and I think those 2 series told the story well enough without needing further exploration.   

The Sandman doesn't quite end at the end. We get a bonus episode based on the limited comic book series Death: The High Cost of Living.  Starring Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death of the Endless, we spend her day off with a suicidal journalist as he confronts what makes life worth living.  

And that is that for this week's Touchbase.

Next up, the return of Abbott Elementary.  

And the start of Outlander: Blood Of My Blood.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.