Thereby making the non-Prize-Puzzles even less relevant than they are in syndication?
I am the Kevin O'Leary to Travis's Robert Herjavec, I think.
That was indeed the reference.
So here's a thing: a couple weeks ago they have Collette Vacations week where the sponsoring company provided all of the trips on offer that week. Thirty years ago the show was lauded for extravagant and lavish prizes, with $50,000 hand-made Italian sports cars, $90,000 Oriental rugs, jewels as big as my little cousin's fist, boats and motorhomes and all sorts of stuff, and yet in that one week they don't offer anything out of the ordinary. Why not offer a first class trip to the location, or a longer trip to do something different instead of aggressively doing the same thing every day for thirty-nine weeks? J.R. linked to us an episode from 1987 where there was a three-week cruise of the Orient in the bonus round. The cars are now run-of-the-mill sedans and no longer even kick in the five-grand to cover the taxes on it. If the syndicated show can't put their back into offering things that are interesting and water-cooler-worthy, then why would we assume that a nighttime version would do the same? Put a Corvette, Mercedes or Jaguar out on the wheel to get some eyeballs--TPIR did that for the first couple of years after Drew Carey took over.
The reason that Who Wants to be a Millionaire worked and Chance of a Lifetime didn't is that Millionaire gave away its money in an interesting, exciting and compelling way, and Lange Lifetime (for as neat a game as it was) didna. Wheel of Fortune used to give away the cash and prizes in a compelling way--they haven't for about ten years or so now.