Like Supermarket Sweep With Money Thrown At It (Price is Right, The)

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	Price is Right, The
Date:	21/08/01 (206 review reads)
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I have to say that its nice to see Brucie still as popular as ever with the general public. He is an enetertainment God and deserves his place as the king of the British gameshow, but sometimes you have to wonder about the shows he has presided over. The Price Is Right is one of his least impressive offerings if you ask me, but is still quite entertaining in a rather numb-brained sort of way.

I vaguely remember someone else doing this show before Brucie(was it Leslie Crowther?) but other than a change of face behind the mic, little else seems to have altered. The concept is simple. People in the audience are assigned a number when they enter and are all prospective contestants. A computer randomly(so they say), picks a selection of these to "Come On Down" as the catchphrase goes, prompting a variety of reactions but as yet nobody tumbling head over heals to the bottom of the stairs :o(. Yeah I know, cruel, but I just wanna see it once! Maybe they could take out a cameraman or two at the bottom...

Anyway, once you have your selection of contestants, they are shown a luxury item to which they have to assign a price tag. You have to wonder where these people shop when you hear the suggested price ranges but its the person who gets closest who goes through to play one of the next games for a bigger prize. These games are very simple and usually based around sorting items into their correct price brackets no matter how differently they dress each game up, the concept reamin the same. Win or lose here you go forward to the final game where you are joined by two more contestants who also got through later first and second rounds. To see who gets through to the final round, you must spin a big wheel to get as close to 100 as possible without going one number over. They still haven't cottoned-on to the idea that this wheel is too damn big for alot of contestants particularly the elderly to spin effectively, but spin they do anyway, the victo
r going on to the Showcase Showdown. This is basically a presentation of lots of different luxury goods which they can win if they name a price within a pre-set range which would encompass all of the items were their prices added together - usually in excess of £15,000 which is pretty damn good for a gameshow(well used to be before Who Wants To Be A Millionaire came along).

Well like I said its pretty lame brained as far as entertainment goes, kind of like an upmarket version of Supermarket Sweep. Big flashy sets, fluffies-a-plenty, big ole prizes and a host who is in all honestly old-hat but still manages to pull it off somehow. One has to question where they get their prices from because its certainly not a place I would want to shop at unless I really wanted to get seriously ripped off, but I suppose that is a minor gripe. Its watchable at least although some of the games are nostalgia pieces from the past and quite frankly look like cheap fairground games and much in need of updating. Check it out if you are bored as with all of these style of programs, at least one will not drive you up the wall, just will not do much to have you coming back next week unless you are ewually bored of course. ;o)

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