TPiR Recap - 9/13/2021 (TPiR Season 50 Premiere)

[TPIRfan#9821]

Not to throw cold water onto things (pun intended), but that pool package has to be one of the most impractical prizes ever offered (starting with the tax implications).  I doubt that pool will ever be built.

Why do you think Price threw in $7,500? I took it as the game was going to be played for that cash, and pole position in the Showcase Showdown.

I brought this up in the Discord, but this felt more like an episode of Big Money Week than a season premiere. There were randomly expensive prizes (the showcase, the swimming pool, the jewels, the million), but it didn't feel like the rest of the show was special. If that's how the modern regime wants to treat the 50th premiere, so be it.

[sideshowPA]

Today's Pay The Rent format was simply terrible. For just doing very little the player wins 50K, and after 1 item is revealed we now know he has won 100K. There's simply no tension here at all, and the fantastic cash prizes are almost an afterthought given how boring this game is. There was no way a reasonable person would have gone for 1 million. What's the point of offering that much money if there isn't a real payoff with tension or excitement? Winning 100K should be an awesome moment. But today's setup ensured it was almost an afterthought.

[AussieEvil]

I hope I don't catch flak for this, but I'm wishing there was at least a little red on the Big Wheel's set. Having it be all gold seems a bit off.

[ooboh]

I’m surprised landing on the dollar in the bonus spin isn’t worth $50,000.

[pricefan18]

Today's Pay The Rent format was simply terrible. For just doing very little the player wins 50K, and after 1 item is revealed we now know he has won 100K. There's simply no tension here at all, and the fantastic cash prizes are almost an afterthought given how boring this game is. There was no way a reasonable person would have gone for 1 million. What's the point of offering that much money if there isn't a real payoff with tension or excitement? Winning 100K should be an awesome moment. But today's setup ensured it was almost an afterthought.

This speaks to another thing, Drew's lack of being able to build tension relative to Bob. That whole segment felt very.....anti-climatic even without that issue (which didn't necessarily bother me at time BTW). It's like the $100k was nothing. Least that's how Drew seemed to treat it, or even $50k for that matter.

Sidenote, the idea of a to the penny guess on safe item for the million, woulda been a bit too hard I think even for that stake. I'd say have it be within a dollar up or down ala Check-Out. That would be challenging enough I think and plenty dramatic.

[gamesurf]

Sidenote, the idea of a to the penny guess on safe item for the million, woulda been a bit too hard I think even for that stake. I'd say have it be within a dollar up or down ala Check-Out. That would be challenging enough I think and plenty dramatic.

We're talking the equivalent of fifty car games if it's hit, it doesn't need to be easy.

But the audience does need to believe that it's possible they'll see a million-dollar win. Otherwise why offer it?

Fill in your own ideas if you have better ones, but those were two ideas that I came up with in a few minutes. I find it hard to believe they didn't have better drawing board ideas for Million Dollar Pay The Rent than "meh, 10x everything."

[htmlcc92]

Speaking of Pay the Rent, I’ve always wondered: is there editing done between the model on the floor filling the bag and the model “in the house” putting the items in their spots? Or is the filling of the bag on the floor just for show, while the model in the house has a bag of the same items to pull from?

[pricefan18]

We're talking the equivalent of fifty car games if it's hit, it doesn't need to be easy.

But the audience does need to believe that it's possible they'll see a million-dollar win. Otherwise why offer it?

What about within 50 cents or even as low as 25?

[gamesurf]

Speaking of Pay the Rent, I’ve always wondered: is there editing done between the model on the floor filling the bag and the model “in the house” putting the items in their spots? Or is the filling of the bag on the floor just for show, while the model in the house has a bag of the same items to pull from?

No editing, there are two bags with two sets of items. The model on stage puts the item in her bag, the other one "pulls" an identical item from an identical looking bag at the same time.

What about within 50 cents or even as low as 25?

Sure, or even 10 cents. The exact method of offering the million isn't really my point, my point is that I believe that with a little effort the creative and talented people at TPIR would be able to find a much better way to offer the mil than "10x everything".

[JayC]

The montage on the season 50 logo in the opening is really nice.

I would've lost Pay the Rent putting the ice cream in the mailbox then the soup and stuffing on the next level. Very tough setup, though really he had it lost as soon as he picked the cat food first. A shame since Robert was a very enjoyable contestant.

Bryce was great, though he almost blew Money Game with picking the 36 after missing on the first try with the front two numbers.

Nice to see Bonus Game played, and man that was an expensive pool. Very generous that they put the bonus in the easiest window to get.

Wasn't expecting that first Showcase to be nearly as expensive as it was.

[Mr. Weatherman]

I won't disagree that this episode could have been a bit better to mark the occasion, but if we're speaking in terms of season premieres in general, I don't think we're ever going back to the days of having a traditional 'premiere' episode followed by four days of maybe one pricing game being played for a $30,000+ automobile on otherwise fairly standard shows, sans the balloons on the set.

And I'm honestly OK with that.

It makes much more sense from a production standpoint to film an entire week of interchangeable episodes for this reason:

It’s the 21st century and that’s the way the powers that be want things to be. Flexibility is a good thing for the business.

How often were season premiere episodes re-ran during the summer months when Bob hosted?  It's not something I kept track of, but I don't recall those episodes ever making it to air a second time, at least in the last five seasons or so of his run.  I could be wrong, and I'll stand corrected if so.  But I don't remember it happening.

The way premiere week is handled now, the episodes can easily be slotted back into reruns without having a single episode that really stands out from the rest as celebrating the beginning of the season...re-airing within a month or two of the next season's premiere (and confusing the Joe Plinkos of the world).  It's a week that highlights the best of the show, and I would have to think ratings are somewhat elevated compared to regular shows, even on the second airings.  If I'm seeing a million dollars at stake and didn't catch it on the first airing, I'm probably sticking around for that episode.

For us as fans, we end up with an entire week to celebrate instead of the one episode followed up by four pretty bland days, as I already mentioned.  Of course I miss those really jazzed up premiere episodes, who doesn't?  But from a practical standpoint, I get it, and I do enjoy having four more days to look forward to instead of being one and done.

And really, PTR wasn't the only beefed-up game we saw today (yesterday now at the time of typing this).  Both car games were played for $23-25k vehicles.  We had a freakin' $48K+ swimming pool won, as impractical of a prize as it may be -- although I will give the show credit for coming up with something pretty unique there.  The two least pricing games still had $8K+ in prizes up for grabs, counting the cash in Math.  Need I mention the showcases?  I think the budget on this show was plenty and not that far removed from Season 35's premiere when comparing total winnings ($231,593 S50 vs $297,708 for S35).

And since it's been discovered that this episode was actually the second taped of the season, the second aired episode of S35 actually wasn't that spectacular.  Only $68,293 in prizes were won despite going 3/6.  A third of that total was won in the showcase round.  The second half lineup of prizes and games could have been inserted literally at any point during the season, and no one would have noticed the difference -- it was pretty bland overall.

Opinions here will differ, and that's OK.  But count me in the crowd who likes having an entire week of goodies instead of just one day.  Now that PTR is out of the way, it's easier to look forward to the rest of the week, and I'm pretty stoked!

[pricefan18]

Gonna play devil's advocate here as to what was just said, but why couldn't they do the best of both worlds and do a big premiere, and then 4 non-descript shows they could air/re-air any way they wanted? Then you still get the benefit of roughly a week of reruns that could be slotted anywhere, while still getting a huge premiere show as well. Course granted we ARE getting the Primetime special, which helps a lot in this regard (still sorta feel it would been best to air that first leading into Premiere Week), but I digress.

[SeaBreeze341]

I’m surprised landing on the dollar in the bonus spin isn’t worth $50,000.

I'm not.  Maybe they'll update it in time (if not for specials), but the $25,000 prize is fair enough.  While it would be nice & fitting, the purpose/objective of the SCSD is to make the showcase by being the closest to that dollar without going over.  That's been the definitive defense of why they never raised the amount for landing on a dollar in one's regular spin or spins

[DylanBe]

I'm not.  Maybe they'll update it in time (if not for specials), but the $25,000 prize is fair enough.  While it would be nice & fitting, the purpose/objective of the SCSD is to make the showcase by being the closest to that dollar without going over.  That's been the definitive defense of why they never raised the amount for landing on a dollar in one's regular spin or spins

That might make the 50 space green and worth $50,000 during Big Money Week just like they did with 45 in Season 45, when they made that green and worth $45,000 in a bonus spin.

[jhc2010]

This speaks to another thing, Drew's lack of being able to build tension relative to Bob. That whole segment felt very.....anti-climatic even without that issue (which didn't necessarily bother me at time BTW). It's like the $100k was nothing. Least that's how Drew seemed to treat it, or even $50k for that matter.

Sidenote, the idea of a to the penny guess on safe item for the million, woulda been a bit too hard I think even for that stake. I'd say have it be within a dollar up or down ala Check-Out. That would be challenging enough I think and plenty dramatic.

Drew didn't even mention the words "One million dollars" in the time between the $100K reveal and the decision to walk away. Maybe it was edited out? Or maybe he just doesn't like to try to be a game show host.