The worst thing about game shows is to watch someone miss a golden opportunity to get rich. Fans almost always pull for contestants to win big, and when they have a great chance to do just that only to fall short in shocking fashion, it’s utterly heartbreaking.
Such drama occurred on the September 17, 2024 edition of Wheel of Fortune.
Almost exactly 10 years to the day since Sarah Manchester won a million dollars on Wheel of Fortune on the Sep 16, 2014 edition, Vivian Tran had a legitimate shot.
Manchester is the last contestant to win a million dollars on the regular edition of WoF, but in 2021, on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, Melissa Joan Hart won a million dollars for Youth Villages, a non-profit that “helps emotionally and behaviorally troubled children and their families live successfully.”
For anyone to even have a shot at a million dollars, one of their spins of the wheel must land on the million dollar wedge, which happened for Tran. When this occurs, the contestant first has to properly guess a letter in the current puzzle in order to advance, which Tran also did. This meant that she also had to avoid going bankrupt and win the game to head to the final bonus round, at which time the cash prize would be upgraded from $100,000 to a million dollars. Even so, it’s unlikely that the contestant would be playing for the million, because there are 24 other possible prizes that the bonus wheel can land on.
Tran did not go bankrupt, won the game, got to the bonus round, and spun the bonus wheel, which landed on one of the 24 random envelopes, only one of which contained the million dollar prize. That envelope, which shows the prize that the contestant is playing for, is not revealed until after the bonus round.
To make things a little bit easier for Vivian Tran — no relation to Bachelorette Jenn Tran who, coincidentally, also suffered a recent heartbreak — she actually landed on a wild card during the game, giving her an extra consonant to use for the final puzzle, which usually only allows three consonants and one vowel.
The subject that she chose for that final puzzle was “What are you doing?”
It was a three-word puzzle, with the traditional letters already revealed to be R,S,T,L,N, and E, and Vivian chose four more consonants and one vowel: C, H, M, P, I.
Tran was in prime position to win, because her choices helped fill 11 of the 16 letters, including the last word in full, and almost all of the second word. She really just needed to figure out the first word of the phrase.
Here’s the 3-word puzzle:
_ _ _ E R I N _ / S _ M E / H E L P
Could you have guessed it? I was personally watching and, despite being pretty good at Wheel, I was unable to figure it out in time. Vivan knew the last words were “some help” and tried numerous words for the first one, but time ran out, and she lost.
The answer? Ironically, it was “Offering some help.”
That’s when the host usually opens the envelope to reveal what the contestant failed to win, which always results in a lengthy “Oh,” from the audience. This time, the audience racket sounded more like a terrifying gasp, when Ryan Seacrest opened the envelope and revealed “One Million.”
Vivian had to turn away from Seacrest, as she looked as if she were in physical pain. It was gut-wrenching just to watch, let alone what it must have been for Tran to experience. She understandably seemed to be on the verge of tears. She at least won $27,300 but it’s no comparison to a million. On this day, it was indisputably the Wheel of Misfortune.