The Price is Right - 4/30/12 Episode

Ugh.

That pretty much sums today's episode of The Price is Right, and that even takes into account a $1 spin on the wheel and an exact bid on bidders' row.

That was more than offset, however, by contestants' 0-for-6 performance in the pricing games. The first was the toughest one to take, as Kevin very nearly became the first to ever win $100,000 on "Pay the Rent."

Unfortunately, he took home $0.

Here's the set-up:

You get six grocery items, and each item or combination of items has to cost more than what you put on the "floor" below it. So, the items you put on the first floor (that blue "couch" and green "stove" you see in the photo above) have to cost more than what you put in the red mailbox there at the bottom. And so on and so forth, with the most expensive item up top.

What made today's defeat so heartbreaking was that Kevin played it correctly, and I genuinely thought he had it. What most contestants do is place the obvious least expensive item in the mailbox at the bottom, placing more expensive items above and leaving no chance of the top item being more than the floor below it. Most of these contestants take home the $5,000 or $10,000 - you can stop at any time, or risk what you've won already to move on to the next level - so that's not exactly a bad haul.

Kevin put the Twinkies (or "snack cakes" as Drew Carey and George Gray were contractually obligated to call them) on the second level, which was the right move.

Unfortunately, it didn't pay off.

I really enjoyed Drew's buildup, and Rachel looked legitimately excited about the prospect of a $100K winner. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Nor was Erin's trip to Rome on this brutal "Range Game" loss:

Would Bob Barker have asked how to say "That sucks" in Italian?

Bidders' row WIN
There is an obvious strategy to bidding last on bidders' row, but there's a certain art to going third, also. Generally, you want to go a little bit over the highest bid (unless you're convinced the first two were grossly underbid, in which case go well over) or, if you think both prior bids are too high, go well under. If the range is wide enough, you can certainly go in between, too.

Things to NOT do: bid less than (but very close to) someone else, or use the fourth-bidder strategy ($1 or $1 over), which just invites the actual fourth bidder to outdo you.

The number of people who go with one of the not-do's is preposterous. Stephanie (far right), however, played it perfectly, and won a kitchen table and $500 cash for her efforts.

Stephanie then blew a pretty winnable set-up in "Push Over" for the new kitchen to go with that kitchen island:

That's pretty much how things went today. Even "Any Number" sucked, so much so that I'm not even going to get into it.

The good
Here are three things to pick up the mood a little bit:

Kevin rebounds from his "Pay the Rent" loss to spin a dollar and win $1,000 on the wheel:

With Rockin' Amber not on the show today, George took his turn at modeling the guitar:

And here's Manuela on a trampoline:

Contestant/prize mismatch
So Kevin made the Showcase with his $1 spin, obviously, and he was met by Michael, who took home the piggy bank in "Any Number."

And here's the first prize in the opening Showcase:

(the motor scooter, not Rachel)

Kevin felt the home theatre and Ford Fusion that came with that pink Vespa was good enough to bid on, and he took it home after Michael clearly underbid the fishing equipment/Alaska cruise/bass boat Showcase:

No offense to the old man, but I was pulling for Kevin after the "Pay the Rent" travesty. He was a smart, not-obnoxious contestant, and he's in the Army, to boot. His victory sweetened an otherwise pretty sour show.

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