About Last Night…CELEBRITY WHEEL OF FORTUNE, MR. MAYOR, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, and More

Let’s talk about Thursday night’s TV!

CELEBRITY WHEEL OF FORTUNE: There is no game show I love more than WHEEL OF FORTUNE, so I was really excited for this. On one hand, I did enjoy it; it didn’t feel like it was dumbed down like a lot of “celebrity” versions of shows are. And the first group of contestants were fun.

But it also felt odd to have the same group competing two games in a row? Yeah, they had their own history to play with, but at the same time, it felt kind of awkward.

MR. MAYOR: Ooof.

To be fair, I did laugh at Ted Danson attacking the Kings’ mascot.

But.

The timing absolutely could not be worse for this show. They waved off the COVID of it all by making it set in the future, but LA is currently being slammed. And, I’m sorry, right now, it’s hard to want to laugh at an unqualified person who ran for public office to essentially prove a point and is now floundering.

This may have felt funnier a year from now. Or five years ago. But right now, for the most part, it just made me uncomfortable. I really like the cast, so I’ll likely stick around for a bit, but I really wish I enjoyed the first two episodes more.

LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT: I was excited and nervous about Barba’s return, because, realistically, Barba has way more experience than Carisi. And by pitting them up directly against each other, I was worried either A) Carisi would win in an unrealistic way, B) Barba would win and would push Carisi further back in his progress adjusting to the ADA world and/or C) Barba would be defending someone fairly indefensible, and it would be really hard to grasp why he made this move.

But it ended up being pretty electric. Carisi was the best he’s been in the courtroom, and Barba clearly had something to prove. It was probably the longest we’ve spent dealing with an actual court case in a few seasons (at least?), but it worked on every level, from seeing new aspects of the jury selection to the varied directing style.

And, look, it made sense why Barba defended a man who killed his daughter’s rapist—even if Garland’s concerns were absolutely valid—given his exit, and I’m glad the show didn’t shy away from the parallels.

I’m also really glad they found a way to both have Carisi win and the outcome basically be what would have happened if a deal had been cut. It basically felt like the best case scenario for everyone involved.

(Also, wow to Fin and Phoebe! It seems fast, but they seem really happy together. Good for them. And that Rollisi NYE scene was very cute…I’m really curious if they do try and go down that road now that they’re not actively working together the same way.)

THE CHASE: Hm, I don’t really get what they’re doing with this. By having one expert face off against all three civilian contestants, why keep showing the other two experts? Why not have one per contestant? But it was interesting to see the contestants have to gamble once they went head to head with the expert…and the woman who didn’t take the $400k+…wow. SMART, but wow.

Which shows did you watch last night?

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