Wheel of Fortune Finally Has a New Host. It’s Weird for Exactly the Opposite Reason I Expected.

You have to give Wheel of Fortune credit. To judge from Seacrest’s debut episode Monday night, the show is flirting with the slightest updates—the longtime co-host, Vanna White, no longer has to touch letters on the board to reveal them; there are a somewhat new set and visual elements—but no one dared touch the rest of it. Some eagle-eyed Wheel of Fortune fans noticed that he wasn’t clutching the stack of cue cards that Sajak relied on while navigating the lukewarm get-to-know-ya contestant interviews before settling into the gameplay. Seacrest clearly took the time to memorize the prosaic factoids about the three players in front of him—one of them lives in Denver but is originally from the South, another likes to visit NFL stadiums, all disappeared from the American consciousness by 8:05 p.m.—which injected a touch more warmth into the proceedings compared to the former host’s gritted-teeth cordiality. Press leaks have suggested that Seacrest is making significantly less than Sajak’s legendary $20-million-per-year largesse, and over the summer, news broke that the once-and-future Wheel host was breaking his sabbatical to emcee Celebrity Wheel of Fortune next June.