Both games are solid C+ games, but that's about it.
Back to '72 is clearly designed to be a one-season game, but even then I can't see it being an "every week" game, it's just too derivative and winning all the necessary eBay auctions to actually GET the vintage props in time for filming would be a nightmare for production. Especially when there aren't that many prizes in the right price range from 1972 to use in the first place (it's literally just Bonus Game and 5 Price Tags small prizes, the very first Give or Keep playing, and mayyybe the cheaper Any Number consolation items), and even fewer if you take out fur episodes. It'll probably turn up about 10-12 times in total maximum. (Do we know if the contestants win the old prizes? Do they win modern versions of the same item? Cash equivalents? Or is it just for show?)
To the Penny has clearly had a lot of thought go into it, but I don't know that it works all that well. This premiere was an anticlimax for sure, but I feel like it not being an anticlimax is going to be rare. Starting with gimme prices to build excitement is probably going to be standard operating procedure, so it's going to be common for people to make it to the $6k item with most/all of their coins intact, not to mention that Drew seemed to be repeatedly implying that you find out you're wrong by being shown the correct price rather than just being told you're wrong and having to try again. If you've got a game that sounds like it'd be hard but in actuality has so many layers of half-baked strategy that it becomes a confusing doddle, and it takes up an exorbitant amount of time in the process, something has gone very wrong.
I don't think it helped that they both continued the show's continuing trends towards cash games (maybe Back to '72 isn't actually one and the $50k was just a thematic prize; either way, To the Penny is at least the fourth of Drew's era when there were only five (and a half, if you count Fortune Hunter) introduced in the entire time Bob was there) and big gimmick sets that are going to be impossible to upgrade when they start to feel dated in ten years (how would you even update something like Hot Seat, a game that already felt like the set was out of date when it debuted?). Sure, Back to '72 isn't going to be here long enough to get an upgrade, but To the Penny is probably going to be stuck with that look until it's retired and... as much as it feels more like a classic Price game visually than basically everything since, like, More or Less, it also feels like it should be better than it is given the excellent theme and the cool rotating display. It's like... it's like they tried for something as iconic as Cliff Hangers or Safe Crackers, and the promise was there, and yet we still ended up with something only marginally better than, say, Freeze Frame.
