Winning Lines is often considered one of the worst formats with one of the best bonus rounds.
I will say it again and every time, Winning Lines was created as a vehicle for UK's lottery. Not our fault that we didn't add some meat on the bone.
If you're Frank Wayne producing The Nighttime Price Is Right, you're treating the Showcase that way.
Not for nothing, MattO is correct, most game shows are paced so that the end game will have the biggest pop for good or bad. I think it was Steve G. who told me that at least for a long time, the Showcases would have the biggest prizes, but not necessarily that the showcase winner wound up as top winner overall.
Yeah, it would be nice if they had more valuable prizes in the boxes on offer to make it a little bit more strategic as to when to keep a prize and when to exchange it. But then again, the whole fun of the round was watching the husband run up and down the stairs for 90 seconds and marvel at the fact that nobody ever took a tumble carrying those boxes without holding a handrail.
I typically don't stick around for it when stopping on a YT video, but I look at it this way--winning a stunt round allows the team to choose what sort of prize they want, and the end game ramps that up. Want kitchenware? Something to hang on your wall? Electronics? You could have a little of everything and there is the fun of "here's the next thing that you won" and generally the prizes were opened by retail value, so it built to a crescendo.
