FULL RECAP - TPiR 10/05/2009

[SteveGavazzi]

I wonder if there will be an extra week of shows taped to realign the schedule.  I'll take two Christmas weeks, please. 

Definitely explains the absolutely sudden reappearance of Master Key, though.

They could just rerun week 3 in the morning at the beginning of December.

Personally, I'd gladly take an extra week of reruns early in the year if it means the summer reruns not starting until the end of June.

[Kev347]

The contestant doing the reveals on Grand Game was funny to watch, but I felt bad and embarrassed for Drew. Other than that, not much worth noting here, except for the sudden return of a couple of long-lost prizes, the ever-popular HoverJet and shaved ice wagon. We are way way too due for a $2.00 card to be drawn in Pocket.

Timings:
Master Key (5) - 4:54
Range Game (4) - 3:48
Make Your Move (4.5) - 3:59
One Wrong Price (3.5) - 3:28
Pocket Change (5) - 5:26
Grand Game (5) - 4:17
Total time (27): 24:52

[PriceFanArmadillo]

On Pocket Change Statistics,

How many contestants have selected the $2.00 card? 

Don't know, but it had better be pretty close to 20% of them.  The odds of taking the $2.00 off the board are exactly one-in-five.

[Rlotpir1972]

Actually I think they used to say the total prize package value in master key, but I thought I read somewhere that they didn't feel it was necessary so they stopped doing it.  Someone correct me if I am wrong.

They never did.  They should have if they need the prices to do the math later on.

[SteveGavazzi]

First, I'm reasonably sure they did.

Second, I'm sure they know how much the prizes cost whether they announce it or not.

[Grammar-Nazi]

I'm always two or three days behind watching the show, so I'm always surprised when I notice something that no one else has seen and posted, but this was so obvious, I'm stunned I'm the first one to comment on this:

During the second showcase, during the trip reveals, when Lake Powell is introduced, Rachel is standing by the front of the three monitors, and that's where Lake Powell is. When they cut back from the trip view, she's standing beside the back monitor, and walks forward to the middle monitor. Either she ran back to the third monitor during the cutaway, or they refilmed this in post and edited together poorly. Either way, it looked bad.

[CJBojangles]

During the second showcase, during the trip reveals, when Lake Powell is introduced, Rachel is standing by the front of the three monitors, and that's where Lake Powell is. When they cut back from the trip view, she's standing beside the back monitor, and walks forward to the middle monitor. Either she ran back to the third monitor during the cutaway, or they refilmed this in post and edited together poorly. Either way, it looked bad.

They did this same thing with an all-trip showcase last week. Rachel more than likely did just walk to the furthest back screen during the description, which wouldn't require any editing in post.

I thought it looked fine. A neat way to display the trips.

[penny_ante]

First of all, I'm 99% sure this episode wasn't 4861K.  They changed the graphics for Rich's calldown window, and that's something that doesn't usually happen in the middle of a taping day (4855K was an early taping).  I'd wager that they've jumped ahead for this week of broadcasts and that we'll pick back up with week 4 next week.....

And this is now confirmed at TV.com -- it's #4941K, the December 7 episode.

This was the show I saw in studio. It was the early taping of 21 September 2009. (Which is why I missed the 'Most Expensive' playing with the three video screens of the premiere.) They told us the tape number and airdate in studio, in fact, they did one better:


(anybody here look familiar? Irene was the bidder Joshua kept one-upping.)

Each person waiting to get into the studio gets a photos in front of one of three backdrops: 'Pl!nko', 'Cliff Hangers', or 'The Big Wheel'. Adam Sandler, introduced as a producer of 'Price', came out to tell us about it personally, since it was the first time these have been used. Once your (or your group's) photo is taken, you're given a card with the url priceisright.com/fanphotos. Your photo number corresponds to your OoA number. You can download a low-res version of your picture for free for a limited time, or you can pay to have it printed or plastered on all sorts of things to commemorate your day at Studio 33.

I hadn't intended on giving a full report of the show, because members of the staff are lurkers, and I want to get on the show someday. But I do want to share a few things:
The taping was very much as you saw it on air. Very little was cut.

• If you thought the intro was rushed as you saw it on TV, it's even faster when you're there. Imagine being corralled into your seats, then not 5 minutes later, you've been warmed up, the lights come up, and 45 seconds later, the first four are in place, and you're on your feet for Drew's entrance. It's dizzying!
• When Mike Richards said on TPiR.com that the audience is louder than ever, he means it. You can't hear a thing in that studio at times. And that's just the way they want it. Production Assistants regularly keep motioning to us to make more noise, even if we're already at top level. I left the studio hoarse. (But you wouldn't know it by watching the episode; things are leveled out quite well.)
• At the top of the show, and throughout, contestants are called and shown cue cards (this is nothing new). Contestants are allowed to keep these cue cards after taping whether they made it onstage or not.
• There weren't many things cut from this episode, nor were many things recreated, from what I could tell. A couple of the things that were cut were the shout-out Joshua made to his In-n-Out Burger homies, and references to Sean's 'Mountain Drew' T-shirt.
• There was a stopdown before the presentation of the fifth One-bid behind door 2 (the bikes) because 'Pocket ¢hange' was already behind the Giant Price Tag when Drew tossed to Rich to announce it. Rich said 'Hold!', Drew got a little snippy (because he made a comment about Sean and his crew's shirts right before this and thought it was in reference to that), then the red curtain came out to hide the pricing game. The pricing game and its cover moved to somewhere near door 1, the GPT flew up, and taping resumed. Door 2 opened revealing the bikes. Shortly after the description of them, the GPT came back down, and the game was put back in place.
• There was a major glitch while doing the all trips showcase. Rachel did indeed present the first trip on the front-most monitor, then present that same on on the last-most prior to presenting the second trip. That was as intended and it was no glitch. However, when they did the recap at the end, showing the first trip at the back-most monitor, the second at the middle, and the last at the front-most, the New Zealand trip's background wouldn't come up on cue. The text (super) did, but the background didn't. They did retakes all through the final commercial stopdown. I'm not sure if they got it by the time they were ready to come back to announce the showcase results.
• Since the producer's table is no longer on stage (to better present things for the widescreen format the show has now, of course), Drew walked off of the home base, down the stairs as he tosses to commercial, then walks offstage through the curtains between door 5 and the stage edge. I don't remember how he got on home base again afterwards. When he was back, though, he was ready to do the final reveals.
• During the parade of prizes, there were many loops of the theme, with many, many pans of the audience. We were encouraged to scream and applaud for the cameras while they panned, as the Production Assistants pointed exaggeratedly toward the active cameras while they panned the audience.
• When it was all over, Rich asked us all to leave the studio quietly, as he had to re-record some of his cues. I don't remember which ones, exactly, but I do remember one of them was quite a tongue twister. I think Rachel was back to trying to get the trips to reveal correctly.

Whew. That was a few more things than I thought!

Oh yeah, there's a couple more:

• The couple that had Drew reveal their sonogram results announced it during one of the earlier breaks couldn't get him to do it when they first asked him to, the break was too short. We got back to it during another break, and it was recorded. I wouldn't be surprised if this weren't an exclusive video on CBS's webpage for TPiR.
• Cathy, the 'Master Key' winner, was completely baffled when she came offstage. They shoved a clipboard and a pen in her hands when she came offstage and said that they'd come back for her later (for the 'Showcase Showdown'). Just before we came back from commercial for Act 3, the pages motioned for her to put the clipboard under her seat (because they don't want it to be seen on air), and she thought that was her cue to go back on stage. I grabbed her to keep her from making a gaffe, and got a nod from a page. She was still clueless as to what had happened.

It's amazing, but it was a head rush of about an hour or an hour and twenty minutes we were in studio. We exited and the next group of contestants were all lined up and ready to be interviewed for the second taping of the day.

Believe it or not, it's still a well-oiled machine.

Overall, I came away with this:
It was disappointing that only one game was won, but the lineup was good, the showcases were okay, and there were enough lights and it was loud enough that if I weren't paying attention, I wouldn't have known these things. I think that's the new MO of the Carey era.

Thanks for reading this far if you made it.

[PriceFanArmadillo]

I hadn't intended on giving a full report of the show, because members of the staff are lurkers, and I want to get on the show someday.

Eh, don't worry about it. 

I left the studio hoarse. (But you wouldn't know it by watching the episode; things are leveled out quite well.)

I once sat for five tapings in three days.  You don't know hoarse. 

[PimpinJC]

Master Key: It just isn't right without Big Banana.  I like the new car platform.

Make Your Move: Not very smart for making the spa $1xx.  If it was going to be lost, it shouldn't have been lost that way.

Pocket Change: That bloody 5 just would not go Sean's way.

[whinbaby]

The 7,166rd set of Pricing Games (54th for Season 38)

Showcase #1
Kitchen - $2,997
Personal Chefs to Go - $450
Ford Mustang - $29,814

Showcase #2
Trip to Lake Powell - $8,083
Trip to Asheville - $5,153
Trip to Auckland - $11,619

Your Modeling Scorecard for December 7, 2009
Daily Records
$79,360/2005, $12,801/2007

Rachel Reynolds
Total: 10/$52,485 (6/$27,727, 4/$24,758)
Cars: 1/$21,347 (0/$0, 1/$21,347)
Trips: 3/$24,855 (3/$24,855, 0/$0)

Manuela Arbelaez
Total: 8/$37,823 (4/$22,642, 4/$15,181)
Cars: 1/$16,595 (1/$16,595, 0/$0)
Trips: 1/$8,544 (0/$0, 1/$8,544)

Amber Lancaster
Total: 6/$53,596 (3/$2,578, 3/$51,018)
Cars: 1/$29,814 (0/$0, 1/$29,814)
Trips: 0/$0 (0/$0, 0/$0)

And for the season
Rachel Reynolds (15 shows)
Total: 142/$694,931 (87/$295,554, 55/$399,377)
Cars: 13/$268,212 (4/$82,028, 9/$186,184)
Trips: 14/$119,667 (8/$54,877, 6/$64,790)

Manuela Arbelaez (13 shows)
Total: 102/$615,077 (68/$353,861, 34/$261,216)
Cars: 12/$234,880 (6/$122,006, 6/$112,874)
Trips: 11/$109,256 (5/$60,218, 4/$49,038)

Amber Lancaster (4 shows)
Total: 28/$218,620 (19/$63,887, 9/$154,733)
Cars: 4/$117,750 (1/$18,261, 3/$99,489)
Trips: 3/$28,089 (2/$15,968, 1/$12,121)

[Macsen]

Make Your Move: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no... no... no... no... no...

This is the Kurt Russell "no" from Tombstone. (#6 in Nostalgia Critic's Top 11 Coolest Cliches)

[Todd]

Make Your Move: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no... no... no... no... no...

Good God, I was just watching. That was absolutely ridiculous.