Viewers who settled in for the Tuesday, September 22, 2026, episode of “Wheel of Fortune” got a second look at a puzzle they had already watched a contestant crack — and never got to see one they were owed. In a number of markets, the syndicated game show ran its prize puzzle twice, dropping the Crossword round entirely and sending fans to social media to ask whether the problem was their television or the broadcast itself.
The confusion built quickly in a Reddit discussion about the episode, where viewers compared notes and discovered they had not imagined it. “Um, did the show just screw up and play the same puzzle twice?” One fan asked. Others piled in with variations on the same reaction, calling the repeat wild, joking that it felt like time travel and wondering what had happened to the broadcast.
What Went Out Twice, and What Went Missing
The puzzle that aired twice was the prize puzzle, solved as “Glinda and Elphaba.” Carmine Lucidi, an Eagle Scout from Long Island, New York, got there first and won a trip to Finland for it — a genuine highlight of the episode, just not one that needed a second airing.
In its place, the Crossword round vanished from affected feeds. That puzzle fell under the category “The Piano,” and Pam Edwards, a contestant from Cypress, Texas, unraveled it with only four letters guessed: “Ivory, Key, Ebony, Strings.” The Crossword round carries an extra hook for people watching at home, who can enter a keyword for a chance at a prize of their own. For the feeds that skipped it, that segment simply never happened.
A Patchwork of Botched Feeds
The editing error did not hit everyone. One Reddit thread traced the problem to the Detroit, Michigan, area. Users reported the same scrambled broadcast in Boston, Massachusetts, and St. Paul, Minnesota. A fan in Minnesota said the Words with Friends puzzle never aired there either. Meanwhile, plenty of other fans reported a completely normal episode, start to finish, which only deepened the puzzle of who saw what and why.
Some of the frustration aimed higher than the show itself. “Clearly there is something going on at Sony or CBS that is causing these broadcasts to be botched,” one thread said.
An Echo of the ‘Jeopardy!’ Premiere
That suspicion has company. On the Season 43 premiere of “Jeopardy!” on September 14, fans tuned in to watch returning champion Matthew Riggle defend his streak. When the broadcast returned from commercial in some markets, a different game was underway — viewers reported seeing a champion named Jonathan rather than Matthew. One Reddit user laid out the timeline of the switch and asked whether anyone else had experienced it. Many Detroit users said they had.
“Jeopardy!” fixed the error and put the episode back on the air before that week was out. Sony Pictures runs both series, and both go out in syndication — a link fans were quick to seize on as the second scrambled broadcast of the young season made the rounds.
The overlap in geography is hard to miss. Detroit surfaced in complaints about both shows, which pushed fan suspicion toward the broadcasts themselves rather than the taped episodes. Viewers in other cities described the same symptom on the same night for “Wheel of Fortune,” while their neighbors watched an episode that unfolded exactly as it should have.
A Bumpy Start to Season 43
The broadcast mishap lands during a season that has already given the show’s audience something to argue about. “Wheel of Fortune,” hosted by Ryan Seacrest in Season 43, tweaked its format again one week into the season, a change that drew a reaction from fans. A duplicated puzzle and a missing round, arriving on top of that, have not helped the mood in the fan forums.
For the contestants, none of it changes the outcome. Lucidi’s Finland trip stands, and Edwards’ four-letter Crossword solve was a small clinic in puzzle-solving, even if a chunk of the country never saw it. For viewers at home, the cost was smaller but more irritating: a keyword they could not enter and a prize puzzle they watched twice.
“Wheel of Fortune” airs weekdays in syndication, with local stations setting the time, and episodes stream the next day on Hulu and Peacock. Fans who missed the Crossword round in their market can find the full episode there — Ivory, Key, Ebony, Strings and all.