FULL RECAP - TPiR 01/07/2009

[mikebev25]

Golden Road: Digital camera was easy. I was thinking 8 myself for the drum set.
Pushy: I knew this trip was expensive. A lot of possibilities were there though. I thought it was 8649.
PaP: Wasn't sure if the hot pockets went with the pringles or candy. However, the insoles and Ester C were obvious.
L7: This game is just not fun anymore. They should start calling it Lucky 1-2-8-9 since those are pretty much the only numbers we've been seeing in thes evil setups this year.
Plinko: Always fun to see this in the second half. Contestant had very tough luck though. I think we all went over with our Plinko doubler guesses in chat.
OWP: That BBQ seemed too high to me. That lawnmower was kinda weird looking.

Worst showcases of the week today (granted none have been real good), but we can only hope there really is light at the end of the tunnel. However, seeing Rich in that costume was interesting to say the least. Once again, you could tell these were vintage Drewcases. Had no idea about that trip to the Amazon. I was appalled by some of the high bids (like over 20K) on that one today in chat.

It seems like we're offering a lot of women's clothing as IUFBs lately. And, we had Victoria's Secret in yesterday's showcase. Don't have a problem with it, but it kind of reminds me of the early days.

I liked this lineup. Even though Plinko 5th is fun, they really should have had it 2nd. GR then Plinko is just the way to go. A natural daily double. I didn't like PaP third for some reason though.

Overall, I've certainly seen better, but an OK show.

[mrbrown2195]

Wake me up when the first fur is offered. I betcha it won't be long.

There's a distinct difference between leather and fur, though, and it's why you won't see it offered - fur is considered cruel and is largely a fashion faux pas today (they beat cute little animals senseless for the fur, while the meat is not eaten and is considered a byproduct), while leather is coming from a cow, which is probably already being slaughter for the purposes of consumption by humans or animals.

[BRB_TheFireball]

Goldy:  Yay!  Golden Road!  With ! It's nice to see the very first Cadillac Escalade Hybrid on this show, the very first Cadillac Escalade in daytime, and the first SUV of any kind in Golden Road since the debut of the Lincoln Navigator about 11 years ago.  But it is a bit of a letdown to see that the final prize in this game is "only" $73,000+.  I guess I've been so used to seeing $90K Vipers and $100K motorhomes in this game.

One-Bid #2:  A leather coat?  Uh-oh... PETA and ASPCA won't be too happy with that.

Pushy:  Highly unusual to see this game second.  Not a pushover today.  $6,490, $8,649, and $9,055 were all reasonable prices.

Pappy:  Highly unusual to see this game in the first half.

L7:  OK, Kathy and Adam... enough with the car games 1st and 4th.  And enough with the impossible L7 setups.

Borko:  Well, at least the second half of today's show gets a little excitement.  You can get away with slotting a car game 4th if a cash game shows up 5th or 6th.  Of course, it would've helped if said cash game gave away more than $1,000.

SCSD #2:  The Big Wheel has been hot this week.  This is the third day in a row that somebody has hit it up for $1,000.

SC #1:  Wow... a first-class trip to the Amazon Rain Forest.  This show has been offering a lot of neat trips this season--Amazon Rain Forest, Tuscan villa, Austin music festival, hockey tournament in Switzerland.  It's a nice departure from the same old fare.  But then again, the same old fare was what got me all of those DSWs, QSWs, Blitzes, and Exactas in CSS over the last 3 1/2 years.

SC #2:  Another dumb Drewcase.

My showcase bids:
Amazon--$20,007
Mustang--$28,307

Result:  For a first-class trip to a nice destination, that first showcase certainly turned out to be a real cheapo.

[ayoung]

Nobody comments on the best part of todays show?

[Joe_Capitano]

The Force will be with you. Always.

[godard]

Short time reader, first time caller.

I don't think the first showcase should be directed at the contestant unless it's a car showcase that's not going to be passed. It's very strange to have both showcases directed at the same person, with her name and everything.

Second, it's clear that Rich is game for anything but has no acting skills. If he was, say, Alan Coulter on the Late Show, he might be able to handle these skits. But his voice is always the same, so it's always awkward. I really like the writing on these... showcase 2 is extremely odd and clever if you just read the closed captioning. But it falls so flat with Rich's reading that it winds up embarassing.

[DYC]

^^
what he said.

and, mind you, i LOVE Rich as an announcer. Actor/ Performer...eh.
We have to admit sometimes though, the scripts themselves are kinda sweet sometimes.
Visual antics and everything aside, sometimes I guess it's just the delivery that we need to work on.

We have some proof that this does improve with later tape dates, so..let's just see.

[Nick]

It's really too bad that Drew decided to just mull along this show, putting very little enthusiasm into anything.  It's pretty much what kept it from being a decent show.

Nice to see Golden Road, and thank you, Stan, for having played The Big Banana for the Cadillac and not some sucky new cue.

Drew cannot come out of commercial ever saying, "You missed" whatever it was in the last segment because he's making himself look stupid to anybody who's been watching before the last segment telling them they missed something they truthfully did not.

A leather coat?  I don't care if it doesn't fall under the same sort of disdain as fur.  It's from an animal, and I'm glad to see they're not shying back on these prizes anymore.  If only fur was in fashion...

There were a couple tough setups today.  The trip in Push Over was surprisingly expensive, and Lucky $even wasn't very friendly either.

It didn't make much sense for Drew to say in Pick-a-Pair, "The Price Is Right is all about second chances sometimes."  He evidently didn't think that statement through.

If they're going to waste all this time with shots of the audience going to commercials, since they apparently have all this time to use, why not consolidate it all into one outro and bring back the midshow bumper?

Drew also cannot go to commercial before the Showcase reveal promising that something will be won since the case of a double overbid is always possible, even if it doesn't look likely.  Matter of fact, there's no need to ramp on about the prizes all the time because, again, people aren't obsessed over the prizes like Drew is.  I'm looking quite forward to the return of normal prize introductions and the lack of Drew's many comments about many prizes.

I'm also looking forward to the return of normal Showcases.  Today's sucked, especially the second one.  Hate isn't a strong enough word to describe how much I loathe Drew's cruddy Showcases where he feels he must give input by injecting some lines for himself.  Gosh, please give the writing duties back to Adam, please.

Speaking of Adam, good job on the lineup today.  It worked.

[SteveGavazzi]

Oh God, Golden Road...the game where it's most blatantly obvious that Drew just doesn't give a ****.  He's absolutely abysmal at hosting it.

...Actually, Drew was pretty bad in general today.  I was on IM with Tice this morning, and after Push Over ended, he told me something like, "This is one of his 'I don't care and I'm not even gonna pretend I do' days."  I really hope things get back to the way they were around Christmas soon -- I don't know how much longer I can endure watching this.

There've been three bonus spins this week, and they've landed on 80, 35, and 60.  Pointless, but weird.

This was the first set of tapings with Gwendolyn back from her maternity leave.  Throughout the second showcase, she looked like she was asking, "Somebody actually wrote this?"

Speaking of the second showcase, Rich looked absolutely retarded at the end of it.  Rod Roddy came to the studio every day with sparkly, neon jackets and still looks light years more normal than that.

Easily the best part of today's show was that CBS, presumably by mistake, aired most of the credits.

[catdogwheel]

I wonder why CBS still cut to the split screen at the end. It's not the end of the world if one commercial to promote an upcoming episode doesn't get aired. They should've just went through the credits.

[JasonA1]

Today's show was decent enough for me. Even thought the showcases were okay, until Rich randomly showed up in Mad Max garb at the end. That was just a waste of time/energy/budget/etc. But everything else worked for me.

And I have never been one to fawn over the models, but Gwen has been looking great in her return, between the outfit she wore showing off the Jeep yesterday, and her getup in the showcases on this show.

-Jason

[Robair]

A lot of you need to crack open a DVD of any of the "Mad Max" movies, since one of the series' recurring themes is hoarding of valuable resources, especialy gasoline. So the second showcase was in essence a tribute to the "Mad Max" films.

Problem was, many viewers didn't know this until the end. I like to refer to this as a "low percentage" showcase, one that only the very media-savvy are gonna get. And most of the TPIR audience is college agers, so I can understand how most of that went sailing over everyone's heads.

Let's hope things have turned around and we can get back to all those quirky career girls from a few years back.

[Kyle]

So the second showcase was in essence a tribute to the "Mad Max" films.

Problem was, many viewers didn't know this until the end. I like to refer to this as a "low percentage" showcase, one that only the very media-savvy are gonna get. And most of the TPIR audience is college agers, so I can understand how most of that went sailing over everyone's heads.

Especially considering that the last "Mad Max" movie came out over 20 years ago. If you're going to do a pop culture parody, do it on something that's more widely accessible.

[MrPlinko]

It's a good thing these episodes are taped out of sequence, because Drew's enthusiasm today SUCKED!  Golden Road had no build-up, no suspense, no momentum. We had Drew carrying his negativity on his sleeve from game to game.  Today, it was like his moods where he was just there to get a paycheck.  I did not DVR tomorrow's episode.  I remain optimistic that by the end of next week we will get back to the excellent hosting of which Drew shows he is capable of doing when he puts his mind to it.  So let's hope this was a fluke.

A great lineup was offset by Drew's nonchalant attitude today.  It seemed like he didn't care and I was almost sleeping during the show because Drew made this episode boring when it had great potential.  This is the first time in watching the show for 35 years, that we had an episode with Golden Road in it and I was bored.

That says volumes.  Oh, I can't wait for the tape schedules to get back on cue to what we had for hosting and quality writing from Christmas week!

Joe

[edmojautis]

Golden: YIPPEE!!! YIPPEE!! YIP-YIP YIPPEE!!! YIPPEE!!!!!! The music fitted with that Cadillac Escalade just right!!! I would've also guessed 6 on the drum set. 

Push: It was definetly a tough call. Anything was possible.

PickPair: Don't mind seeing it played third. Very nice.

Lucky: Car games being played fourth is wearing me out.  The setup was just EVIL.

Plinko: Three "Goose Eggs"  and just $1k won was just so sad to bare. Poor Patricia. 

OWP: LET'S HEAR IT FOR CHRISTINE!!!!

Showcases: The 1st one did have a little potential with the girls in those wacky costumes. The 2nd one.....The look on Gwen's face explains it all. She's like "Who wrote this S***?" Rich looked completely goofy in that Mad max getup, too. The Drewcases will be no more very soon...hopefully.

A 2.25-star show.