The first two pricing setups (especially the second) were too mean-spirited, the third went too far in the opposite direction (see "Does the iPod start with 2?"), and then things more or less balanced out for the last three setups.
Then again, the lack of chips in the first two setups (and the two-prize showcases) kept this from being the editing nightmare that I was expecting.
How in the heck does a comedian of Drew Carey's stature miss saying SOMETHING about Erik Estrada and (Plinko) CHiPS???!?
I was waiting for the Erik Estrada jokes, too, but there was definitely an edit between that come on down and Drew's throw to the next One Bid. Count that as part of the "no time to learn about the contestants" problem that you get from playing Plinko six times.
I thought Drew's "if you're a fan of Side by Side" joke was funny. Doing it again with Double Prices was okay, and doing it a third time with Coming or Going wasn't funny anymore. It also didn't help that for the last two times, Drew killed the momentum of the joke by pausing to think of another quick one-prize game.
I think doing the "You're going to play Plinko" part of the intro was fine for all six playings. As has been noted, they needed to hide the identities of the center-slot prizes before each reveal (in fact, it looked like the fourth contestant picked up on the trend and reacted to seeing "SUV" on the board before the doors were opened). Now that I think about it, it would have been better if they hadn't taken the reaction shot between Plinko reveal and SUV/London reveal for those two playings -- by that point, you know you're not going to get a good reaction from telling the contestant something they already know. The most unnecessary repetition, though, was taking that shot of the slow zoom-out from the Plinko logo all six times -- we kept missing seeing Drew handing off the free Plinko chip because of it.
I wasn't listening for the point when it happened, but it certainly felt like the audience had stopped fully caring about offering pricing advice by the sixth playing.
(For what it's worth, I made it through three playings before I was tired of seeing Plinko/pricing small prizes.)
I too was getting frustrated with the contestants not dropping their chips down the center of the board. Though you want me to boggle your mind? Before season 36 started taping, during one of Drew's Plinko rehearsals, I decided to drop all five of my chips by propelling them down the far stage left side of the board (just like the one chip in this episode that actually landed in $10,000). Amazingly, two of them landed in the $10,000 slot. Of course, I also broke $20,000 in winnings when I released all five chips down the dead center of the board, so I suppose that doesn't mean much.
