Pretty darn awesome episode. Best Spectacular so far this season, and probably counting past seasons, too... wonder why they waited to air this one.
After tonight, it's hard to dislike the whole Million Dollar pricing game thing. I mean, the Range Game and Plinko setups were just ridiculous. Half Off was easier, yet probably even less likely to be won, what with the whole gambling $25,000 aspect hardly anyone was likely to try. And One Away, certainly the easiest, was also relatively bland compared to some of the others. Tonight's idea was... well, I guess the second easiest. Or third easiest, but more likely to be won than the Half Off thing, regardless. It was the best idea of the bunch, though.
What can be said about Cynthia and Clock Game? Well, lots, I guess. She basically knew what she was doing, got a little lucky, and won $1 million! The "luck" part, basically, that both prizes ended in 99. But at the same time, she likely knew, possibly subconsciously, that 99 is the most common ending for Clock Game prizes, so I guess if you're going to go against basic strategy--admittedly kinda' necessary tonight--99 was the way to go. Watching that was just simply amazing!
Speaking of Cynthia, I'm glad she won the showcase. Not just because she was a great contestant--Mary was great too--but I mostly wanted to see whether she won $1,000,000 for winning Clock Game, or $1,005,000 for winning Clock Game. Seems she indeed won $1,005,000! That would've been bugging me for a while had she not won the showcase.
And for all those posting about how "easy" winning $1 million in Clock Game was... I don't buy it. Definitely not easier than One Away for the $1 million. Because while a lot of contestants pick up on little things like lots of prices ending in 99, there are even more contestants who are oblivious to such. Not to mention, the contestant has to have enough forethought to make those 99 guesses, 'cause playing Clock Game by the book would be very unlikely to get the game won in just ten seconds. I think, for a change, it was appropriately difficult, as opposed to the insane Plinko and Range Game setups, or the possibly too easy One Away thing.
I did wonder about a potential legal mess with Clock Game, though: the clock moving one second when Cynthia guessed $899 right off the bat for the sofa. That shouldn't have happened, right? That could've been really bad if Cynthia wound up winning both prizes with the clock between the 19 and 20 second marks. Glad that didn't happen, regardless.
And how did this playing compare with John's? Well, they can't really fairly be compared. John may not have won in under ten seconds, but he had no real reason
to try to win in ten seconds. He probably could have adjusted the perfect strategy a bit if he knew he'd win $1 million for doing it in under ten seconds. Cynthia played a little less "perfectly," but played how she needed to do it to have a shot at winning in under ten seconds.
And on a related note to the $1 million pricing game, I hope at some point we're finally going to get to see one in the second half of the show.
Mary's Golden Road win... you know, her reaction to winning looked like just about the most painful winning reaction I've ever seen! That would've killed me, but Mary seemed all right.
And I was going to comment about it being, in all likelihood, the first time in Price is Right history that a Golden Road wasn't the last spinner in the showcase showdown, but I've been beaten to the punch. Darn.
Jennie (
) and I were both equally fooled by the price of the Chrysler 300... I thought they were more expensive than that, too. Looked like the luggage was probably supposed to be won. Funny how Roger making the thousands digit tricky is exactly how she wound up winning! Yay for backfiring evil plots!
As for Most Expensive... why does it usually seem like European trips are cheaper than trips to other continents? I'd have won, but it was a perfectly understandable loss.
And Plinko... there was almost no way anyone was going to win the beverage shaker thing. But thinking Stan's book was $40? He must really be a huge fan of the book! I mean, heck, I'd pay $40 for it, but still....
