Griffin fell in love with the Big Six because he was gazing upon it in person, against the cavernous backdrop of a Las Vegas casino. This is all terribly unsatisfying, but worse yet, the wheel is so small and drenched in so much glitter, it’s often hard to make out the numbers on the individual wedges. Instead, they invoke the clumsy catchphrase “Stop the wheel!” Then Woolery pushes a button to slow the rickety disc to a halt. Standing awkwardly at center stage beside host Chuck Woolery (who would go on to emcee Wheel Of Fortune for its first six years), the Shopper’s Bazaar wheel is a Big Six-style device that the contestants never touch. Watching the pilot today, it feels like every detail is wrong, most of all the wheel. As it stops, and our focus pushes in to ever-smaller arcs of the circle, the possibilities collapse to a single reality. While a wheel spins, it is pure potential, a 360-degree universe of possibilities. They all give tangible form to ineffable fate. Yet in this respect, Spin’s centerpiece is the same as every other game show wheel. The human touch has become a ceremonial affectation. Although the show’s editors work hard to cut around the carefully rehearsed dance of an actual “spin,” it’s still evident that players simply stand with their hand draped on The Wheel, waiting for it to move so they can pretend to give it a push. Shepard also tells players that The Wheel is “activated by your touch,” which is true only in a notional sense. As mentioned in each episode by the host, Dax Shepard (who does a good job within the confines of a cumbersome, over-edited production), the speed and duration of each spin are determined by a random number generator.
In another blow to the credibility of the show’s title, nobody on Spin The Wheel truly spins the wheel. Spin’s wheel does have one especially inhuman wrinkle. Spin The Wheel’s random number generator is explained in the show’s closing credits.
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