Wheel of Fortune Bonus Rounds aren’t intended to be easy, but some fans of the show think they’ve become a bit too hard to solve.
Such was the case during a recent episode featuring a contestant named Jason, who tried his hand at the “Thing” category.
Jason was given the customary consonants R, S, T, L, and N, along with the vowel E, and chose his own letters, only adding an F to the board.
Jason was left with a puzzle that read “A / F_N / N E _ / _ _ _ _ _.”
Obviously, Jason was in a tough spot not having any letters at all to help him figure out the last word in the puzzle, but host Pat Sajak still wished him well.
“That’s gonna be tough,” Pat admitted. “Talk it out… maybe it’ll spill out. Ten seconds… good luck!”
Jason began to sound out possible words, trying “A Fun New Catch,” but his timer expired before he could come up with the correct answer.
The correct puzzle answer was “A Fun New Hobby,” and as Pat pointed out, Jason had “nothing to work with” on his last word, and it cost him a $40,000 payout.
Jason was a good sport about his loss, however, and at the end of the day, he walked away with $22,336 — not bad for one day of his time and effort.
Wheel of Fortune shared Jason’s clip on YouTube and captioned it, “Jason’s got everything he needs to solve the puzzle — with one glaring exception.”
Wheel of Fortune viewers complain about ‘impossible’ Bonus Round puzzle
Thousands of Wheel of Fortune viewers watched Jason’s Bonus Round on YouTube, and in the comments section, some fans of the show expressed discontentment over the puzzle they deemed “impossible” to solve, costing Jason an additional $40,000.
“That was impossible with his letters,” penned @Matthew6418. “One thing I’m learning watching these is B is often a good choice.”
Another Wheel of Fortune viewer at home insinuated that producers are trying to save money by posing tough-to-solve puzzles, thereby saving the show money.
“You guys are definitely in budget mode,” voiced another YouTube user.
“If he had 20 seconds,” read another comment from a Wheel of Fortune viewer who felt that Jason may have had a shot with double the amount of time to solve his Bonus Round puzzle.
“@coldsnap5742 was “amazed” that they were able to solve the puzzle at home, also implying that it was nearly impossible.
Wheel of Fortune fans have grown tired of hard-to-solve puzzles
This is the second time in recent weeks that Wheel of Fortune viewers have complained about producers preventing contestants from winning big on the show.
Earlier this month, online grumblers griped about “weird combos” in puzzles preventing players from winning.
When a couple named Gary and Laura Novi appeared on Wheel of Fortune’s Sweethearts Week, their Bonus Round puzzle answer was “Outer Lobby.”
Fans of the show argued that “Outer Lobby” wasn’t a commonly used pair of words in a phrase and felt it was misleading and ultimately cost the Novis the $40,000 prize.