The only other reason I can think of for why they gave her the money but her answer CLEARLY came after the buzzer was some sort of technical error such as after giving the correct answer to another password, the computer did not immediately go to the next word.
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So without seeing the rest of the bonus round, I cannot conclude whether they made the correct call to award her $20,000.
With all due respect, I call b.s. on this possible option since Bert's "decision" was allegedly based on the last few seconds alone...if there was more to it, it would have made more sense for the producers to have simply had Bert explain the real reason for the decision, award her the money and say "bye-bye"...but it didn't happen that way...your suggestion really only makes the matter that much murkier...
JakeT
First of all, having the producers give Bert a complex explanation to say and have him do it without mucking it up sounds like a tall order. Seconds, network standards and practices were taken dead seriously behind the scenes, and they may have had to discuss with S&P during the commercial break in which they both came to the correct conclusion. Just because what was "performed" in front of the audience doesn't match the real reason why she won, it doesn't negate that she rightfully won the money. For example on that episode of The New $25,000 Pyramid I posted, they may have had to listen to the tape many times until someone pointed out the gap between those two boxes. On stage, they made people think she won $10,000 because she got her answer in on time, whereas backstage the real reason she won was because of a technical problem that if not happened, she would have given her answer on time.
If many people wrote in to say hey, she didn't get her answer in time, then they would have taken the time in a future episode to give the full explanation although with cue cards to lessen the chance Bert couldn't muck it up.