TPIR Recap - 04/26/2016

[TPIRFan2000]

Episode #7512K
Taped: January 31, 2016
Models: Amber Lancaster, Rachel Reynolds
Mic handoff: Amber Lancaster

                                                                                                      

First four: Selicia Lacey, Joshua George, Brittany Philbert, Giovanni Fascio

IUFB: 4 pairs of Frends deluxe headphones (memory foam ear cushions) and 16GB iPad Air 2 (9.7” retina display, touch ID technology)

Selicia	Joshua	Brittany	Giovanni
$2,200	$1,800	$1,650	$1,851

ARP: $1,857

Giovanni will play 5 Price Tags for a Mini Cooper Hardtop! (1.5 L engine, 6-speed MT, automatic climate control)
The tags: $20,680 $21,530 $23,399 $19,200 $22,050

SMALL PRIZE	PRICE SHOWN	T OR F?	ARP
Ozeri digital kitchen scale	$50	F	$50
Black & Decker AirStation cordless 12V inflator	$114	F	$114
SPT cool mist ultrasonic humidifier	$45	F	$79
Nostalgia 450 W cotton candy machine	$40	F Falsitis strikes again!	$40
PICK		CORRECT?
$22,050		YES

WIN

 

5. Nola Glass
IUFB: Stainless steel wall mounted fireplace (runs on environmentally friendly fuel)

Selicia	Joshua	Brittany	NOLA
$720	$525	$1	$800

ARP: $700

 

Joshua will play Squeeze Play for a Carolina Chair custom-built suede sofa, chair, and ottoman (one nested coffee table set incl.) and a curved 65” smart ultra HD 4K TV (1 Blu-ray player incl.)!

WRONG PRICE	$76,934
DIGIT SQUEEZED OUT	9 ($7,634)
ARP	$7,634

WIN

 

6. Taylor Moore
IUFB: Helen Ficalora 14 karat yellow gold necklace (adorned with flower charm and delicate pave bumblebee charm)

Selicia	TAYLOR	Brittany	Nola
$323	$1	$550	$300

ARP: $1,250

 

Brittany (who is turning 30) will play Magic # for:

·         LifeSpan TR3000i folding treadmill (17 programs, built-in heart rate sensors)

·         Homeward Bath steam shower (8” rainfall shower head, multiple jets – modeled by Amber, who ran from backstage and ended up a little late for the reveal)

MAGIC #	$875
ARP OF TREADMILL	$1,999
ARP OF STEAM SHOWER	$5,400

LOSS

SCSD1

CONTESTANT	WINNINGS	FIRST SPIN	SECOND SPIN	TOTAL	BONUS SPIN
Brittany	$1,250	$0.25	$1.00	$1.25
Joshua	$8,334	$1.00		$1.00 ***$1,000***	$0.60
Giovanni	$23,986	$0.65	$0.20	$0.85

 

7. Dashan Nettles Jr.
IUFB: 500GB Xbox One (Kinect, 2 wireless controllers, 1 headset, 3 pre-loaded games – 6 additional games incl.)

Selicia	Taylor	DASHAN	Nola
$600	$750	$499	$700

ARP: $809

 

Taylor will play Let ‘Em Roll for a Nissan Versa S! (1.6 L engine, 5-speed MT, FWD)
ARP: $12,815

GROCERY PRODUCT	McCormick pumpkin pie spice, 1 oz.	Act dry mouth mouthwash, 18 oz.	Aspercreme with lidocaine pain relief, 2.7 oz.
MORE/LESS?		MORE	MORE
ARP	$5.49	$6.49	$7.49

 

ROLL 1	$1000 CAR $500 $1000 $1000	KEEPS GOING
ROLL 2	CAR $500 $1500 $1500	BAILS (with $3,500)

BAILOUT

 

8. Nicholas Wozniak
IUFB: Cuisinart single-speed espresso machine and 12-cup thermal coffee maker (one burr grinder incl.)

Selicia	NICHOLAS W.	Dashan	Nola
$323	$119	$600	$500

ARP: $1,475

 

Dashan will play Coming or Going for a trip to Montreal, QC, Canada! (RT, 6n, executive suite at Hotel LeCantlie Suites – walking food tour of Old Montreal)

	COMING	GOING
	$4,926	$6,294
GUESS	$6,294
ARP	$6,294

WIN

 

9. Nicholas Sessions
IUFB: Nume salon grade styling hair tools (tourmaline-infused, ceramic coated curling wand and flat iron, one hair dryer)

Selicia	Nicholas W.	NICHOLAS S.	Nola
$400	$401	$174	$199

ARP: $648

 

Selicia heads off to the clubhouse, while Nicholas W. wins by default, and he will play Take Two (which we haven’t seen in a long time) for:

·         34” HP desktop PC (diagonal curved display, 24GB of RAM, 3TB hard drive)

·         Dean electric guitar (alder body construction, maple neck, ebony fingerboard)

·         Chloe accessories (leather tote, key ring pouch, wallet, 2.5 oz. bottle of eau de toilette spray)

·         Escalade Sports foosball table (adjustable leg levelers, solid wood handles, integrated cup holders – 4 foosballs incl.)

TARGET PRICE: $4,308
COMPUTER	$2,395
FOOSBALL TABLE	$599
TOTAL	$2,994
COMPUTER	$2,395
ACCESSORIES	$3,010
TOTAL	$5,405

ARP of electric guitar: $1,298 (electric guitar + accessories would have won)
LOSS

 

SCSD2

CONTESTANT	WINNINGS	FIRST SPIN	SECOND SPIN	TOTAL
Nicholas W.	$648	$0.90		$0.90
Taylor	$4,309	$0.95		$0.95
Dashan	$7,769	$0.75	$0.05	$0.80

 

Showcase 1 (Steps)

·         2 activity trackers

·         11-day tour of Peru from Friendly Planet Travel (RT to Lima, 11d tour of Cusco, Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, etc. – 12 meals incl.)

·         Trip to Bora Bora (RT, 6n, overwater bungalow at Le Meridien Bora Bora – daily breakfast incl.)

Joshua passes to Taylor, who bids $21,000.

 

Showcase 2 (The Pressure Is On)

·         Frigidaire Gallery kitchen accessories (microwave with 10 preset options, range with convection oven, French door refrigerator with water filtration system, large capacity dishwasher - one 6-qt. electric pressure cooker incl.)

·         Trip to the Poconos, PA (RT, 5n, balcony suite at The French Manor Inn & Spa – daily breakfast and dinner, $200 spa credit incl.)

·         Toyota Yaris LE (1.5 L engine, 4-speed AT, FWD, paint/fabric protection)

Joshua bids $27,000.

 

SHOWCASE	SC1 (PERU/BORA BORA)	SC2 (THE POCONOS/CAR)
BID	$21,000	$27,000
ARP	$27,923	$29,628
DIFFERENCE	$6,923	$2,628

Joshua has won $38,962 in prizes!

 

Pricing games won: 3 out of 6 (+1 bailout)

Total winnings: $76,924

[GameShowKid]

What a win in 5 Price Tags!

However, I was baffled by some of the pricing attempts later in the show. $875 for the Magic #? Bids of $119 and $323 on the espresso machine and coffee maker? Bids of $174 and $199 (and other low bids) on the hair tools? I thought to myself: Do any of these contestants watch the show regularly? How long has it been since a one-bid prize has been priced at less than $400?

And then, Nicholas (and some in the audience) starts to celebrate after seeing $3010 for the accessories to go along with the $2395 computer.     He was an entertaining contestant nonetheless. 

[htmlcc92]

I enjoyed the little fun at the beginning of Magic # with Amber running in. Shows we're all only human!

And an enjoyable show, especially with the one-pick win in 5 Price Tags. Wish people would not say "False" as often as they do. I also thought the sub-$400 bids were weird, and the way low number in Magic #.

[GameShowKid]

I enjoyed the little fun at the beginning of Magic # with Amber running in. Shows we're all only human!

Indeed, and thanks for mentioning that. I forgot to.

[TPIRighteous]

Magic # is no longer playable. They've dragged it out 7 times this season, and the average range between the two prices has been $3,518. And somehow, it's still only 5-2?!

How is watching a game this easy in any way entertaining, especially when it's still regularly botched by contestants who are too afraid to set the magic number higher than $2,000?

[Casey]

Where do you place the blame?  It has to be placed solely on the contestants - if the show gives you a $3000-4000 range of safe numbers, it has to be on the contestants.  If I'm up there moving the lever, I'm setting it at $3000 no matter what the two prizes are and going away happy...

[JayC]

I think the only way to get contestants to get the number up higher would be to offer the contestant the amount of the Magic # in cash. If they do that either everybody will win or there will be people who actually set it too high.

[thepriceis_J]

Where do you place the blame?  It has to be placed solely on the contestants - if the show gives you a $3000-4000 range of safe numbers, it has to be on the contestants.  If I'm up there moving the lever, I'm setting it at $3000 no matter what the two prizes are and going away happy...

I'm placing the blame a bit on the show but not all the way.

Look, we aren't all regular people here. We watch or keep up with the show far more than at least 90% of the contestants called down. That doesn't give the contestants a complete pass on fouling things up but I can understand why today's contestant would see a normal looking treadmill and not expect it to even breech a $1,000. Especially since I believe there is one used the show that is indeed $1,000 or less. The show knows there's a psychology to things. If they want the game won, then they need to put in a prize that is either A) clearly cheapish in price or cheap enough that the contestants would feel comfortable sailing the magic number past $1,000 or B) clearly expensive in price so that they'd feel comfortable putting the price up to the high $2,000s. But if you put in prizes that look cheap and are expensive, than you're going to get more cheap guesses than expensive ones. It's the same reason, why you'll get a slew of sub-$500 bids on a $1,200 set of cutlery.

I can't blame the show fully though for putting in cheap prizes. It seems, but I have no proof of it actually being, that their unwritten rule an overwhelming majority of the time is to offer a prize package in any pricing game that's at least $5,000 or more. So finding cheapish looking prizes that actually are cheapish and still adhering to that minimum is probably difficult.

One other note. After I just talked about how CHEAP it makes the show look to offer that extremely cheap Versa, they not only offer it again in a fee game in which the price must be read, but they repeat the ARP twice. And to top all of that off, they offer it in a game where it's possible to win over a third of the price of the car and that's only $5,000!

[TPIRighteous]

Where do you place the blame?  It has to be placed solely on the contestants - if the show gives you a $3000-4000 range of safe numbers, it has to be on the contestants.  If I'm up there moving the lever, I'm setting it at $3000 no matter what the two prizes are and going away happy...

I don't know where the blame should go, but the game is regularly being set up so it's virtually impossible to lose, and it's still being lost sometimes. It's broken by psychology.

There are certain aspects of contestant psychology that seem to hold true almost all the time. People want to pick the middle price, or stop the rangefinder in the middle. People want to say false instead of true, especially the first time. Some of these make some sense, but one that doesn't is that people tend to set the magic number very low.

Here are some stats for you.

• Magic # has been played 16 times in the last 3 years.
• In those 16 playings, the lowest price the show has used for the more expensive prize was $3,295. 14 out of 16 times, it was over $4,600.
• In those 16 playings, the contestant set the magic number under $2,000 eight times. This, with an upper limit that was almost always $4,600 or more.
• In those 16 playings, the average range between prices was $3,120, and yet the game's record was 10-6.
• The 1/28/16 contestant was the first one to set the magic number higher than $3,000 in five years.
• That contestant is also the only contestant in the last three years (out of 10) to win the game by setting the magic number closer to the high price than to the low price.

[Source: TPIR Stats]

In conclusion, it seems like contestants, instead of trying to set the magic number between the prices, are just aiming for the low price, or maybe a little above it. Because this resulted in an unprecedented number of losses, the producers are now making the game ridiculously easy in the hopes that contestants won't screw it up, and it still isn't working all the time.

What I don't understand is why this is a recent phenomenon. I'm not really one to buy into the "contestants nowadays are dumber" thing, but I don't know. The only thing I can come up with is inflation, and contestants' anxiety about letting the magic number move up for too long (like waiting too long to press the button in Range Game... the crowd starts yelling, they get nervous, and they just stop).

All I know is that the ridiculously big ranges have sucked all the fun out of the game. I can't be the only one who, every time I see the price reveals, says "Oh, come on." It's like playing Cliff Hangers with a $100 mountain.

[Torgo]

All I know is that the ridiculously big ranges have sucked all the fun out of the game. I can't be the only one who, every time I see the price reveals, says "Oh, come on." It's like playing Cliff Hangers with a $100 mountain.

I think this begs the question: how much should the range be for Magic #? I feel like no matter what they set as its wiggle room, someone will complain that the range is too forgiving/tight. It's - if you'll pardon the Cliff Hangers pun - a slippery slope.

[TPIRFan2000]

I think this begs the question: how much should the range be for Magic #? I feel like no matter what they set as its wiggle room, someone will complain that the range is too forgiving/tight. It's - if you'll pardon the Cliff Hangers pun - a slippery slope.

Personally, I'd set the ranges in Magic # to between $1.5k and $2k - maybe between $2k and $2.5k on occasion. It would actually make it a bit more challenging.