...I really don't know where to start here. I'm sure the staff meant well with this show, but the things they did just didn't work.
First of all, is anyone bothered by the fact that they put more effort into decorating for Halloween than they did making things look special for what they thought was their 7,000th show? I mean, there was hardly anything extra on the stage, and they didn't even alter the opening speil.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but they're playing Most Expensive for three trips
too often now. This is something that's supposed to be a special occasion, not something they do three times in seven weeks. Getting the staging wrong repeatedly doesn't help, either.
Lucky $even Thousand wasn't a bad idea for a one-time deal...although it would have been nice if Drew hadn't explained the rules incorrectly.
...come to think of it, it
also would have been nice if Lucky $even had been remotely winnable. You don't put 9s in the price on a show where you want everything to be happy and exciting.
Bonus Game didn't come around on the Turntable before its prize was revealed. That worries me.
Oh, and Bonus Game was unnecessarily hard, too. There was no way anyone was going to get that food warmer right.
Whoever decided it would be a good idea to play Double Prices for a watch should be fired immediately. I mean, I understand it's a Rolex, and I understand it cost almost $7,000, but that still doesn't change the fact that the only prize in the game WAS A WATCH! It
felt cheap, and it looked extremely awkward...and the plasma screen behind it displaying random crap didn't help matters.
Actually, the prizes today were just bizarre in general. There were no special cars, yet they offered almost $40,000 worth of trips in Most Expensive. They really have no clue how to do this right.
I will give them credit for coming up with the best Showcase in ages. The writing was unusually decent, and nothing they did felt disjointed. Having the plasmas dressed up as console TVs was a nice touch.
Oh, and this wasn't Rich's 1,001st show as announcer, although it was pretty close. It's the 988th daytime show he's announced -- his ten tryout episodes, and every daytime show since 2885K except for the last new episode of 2006. If you include primetime specials, the total goes up to 1,006.
(I'd have reversed the first and second half...making A#/Bonus/DP/ME/Grand/L7).
I'd have liked to have seen Any Number, Bonus Game, Double Prices, Grocery Game, Clock Game, Five Price Tags -- a 95% normal lineup of the oldest games still in the rotation.