“Let’s offer a huge prize that we can’t possibly afford to give away and then make it completely impossible to win”. That seems to be the M.O. of the powers that be at TPIR these days. Pay the Rent has been discussed to death already in Talk Is Right, but today’s playing is a textbook example of how counterintuitive the game is. The same approach that would have won the contestant $10,000 would almost certainly lose anyone $100,000. By making the game intentionally deceptive, they guarantee that they will never actually have to give the money away. The same thing happened in the showcase today. Porsche Boxters are only worth about $55,000 fully loaded. This means that in order for that showcase to breach near 80, they had to include a near $25,000 entertainment center/TV package. No one would possibly guess that a TV package would cost that much so then again they guarantee they don’t have to give away the Porsche. It is getting really irritating to see this so blatantly on display again in the beginning of season 39.
That being said, I enjoy the introduction to Pay The Rent and the prop a lot, and the game is certainly a little suspenseful to watch. It times out a bit long though (it appears to be a 7 minute game) so any time it shows up we should expect lots of quickies, which may get obnoxious if it’s frequently played and frequently lost.
Other than that this was a fairly enjoyable premiere – at least some games were won this year. J.D. is very nasally but overall not that annoying to listen to, and he is certainly better at ad-libbing than Rich was, which may be something they were looking for. Doesn’t look like the show will go all that much in the variety show direction based on today’s two shows , which is good to see. It just feels awkward to have a model say “sorry” after a pricing game is lost though.
Timings:
Pay The Rent (7) - 7:54
Lucky $even (4.5) - 3:57
Push Over (4) - 3:48
Most Expensive (3.5) - 3:13
Money Game (4.5) - 3:44
Squeeze Play (3.5) - 3:11
Total time (27.5): 25:47