Recap: Andrew Tyler Wins $250,000 on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”
That didn’t take long, did it? Three days into the new season of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and we already have our newest quarter millionaire. Andrew Tyler, a medical student from Dallas, Texas, became the first person in the eleventh season to win the $250,000 prize. Andrew is the second contestant in 2012 to win $250,000 and the eighth overall in the current Super Mix format. Like the last quarter millionaire, Jeremy Blais, Andrew jumped over his $100,000 question; answered his $250,000 question correctly, and elected to walk away on the half million dollar question.
For $250,000, Andrew Tyler was asked:
What playwright was literally born on Broadway, with his mother giving birth in a NYC hotel room situated at 43rd Street and Broadway?
A: Eugene O’Neill
B: Tennessee Williams
C: Edward Albee
D: Arthur Miller
He elected to risk his bank of $58,600. If he missed he would drop back to $25,000; losing $33,600. However, Andrew answered A, Eugene O’Neill and won the $250,000. His $500,000 question asked:
In the center of our Milky Way galaxy is a black hole that appears from Earth to be in what constellation?
A: Orion
B: Ursa Major
C: Cassiopeia
D: Sagittarius
Andrew thought the answer was D, Sagittarius, but did not want to risk losing $225,000. However, if Andrew went with his gut, he would have won the $500,000 prize and been the first person in five years to see a million dollar question. Big congratulations to Andrew Tyler on his $250,000 win. Getting the giant money on Millionaire is unbelievably tough and, especially in the Super Mix format, takes a perfect combination of knowledge, skill, and nerve. He played it extremely well and walked out a wealthy man because of it.
Fingers crossed that this is a good omen for the season and we, finally, at least get to see a million dollar question in play.
In case you missed it, take a look at some of his game below, starting with the end of Round One.
Photo courtesy Valleycrest Productions Ltd.
The first quarter-millionaire for a new studio. Congrads for him.
No, this doesn’t make me optimistic at all. The current Millionaire questions are set up to make the game nigh unwinnable. The Level 2 questions are nearly always arcane, “know it or don’t” pure trivia which nobody can be expected to know – Lach Trash, as we Jeopardy! fans call it. (Compare early Millionaire, where million-dollar questions were things like “How far is the Earth from the Sun?” which most people should’ve seen mentioned in passing before; it’s a matter of whether or not they can remember it.) They do occasionally throw in a reasonable question, probably when a sufficient number of previous contestants have bombed out that they have excess money in their prize fund to take a $100K or $250K hit. This also only seems to happen once a contestant has used both jumps, for reasons I’ll elaborate on below.
The only reason we have $250K winners is because they’ve jumped the $100K question, after which you should guess even if you have no more lifelines and no clue whatsoever. You’d be betting up to $33,500 (assuming you used your other jump on the $100 question) for a 1-in-4 chance at a $225,000 payoff, which are extraordinarily good odds.
I doubt we’ll even see a $500K winner, because that would require someone jumping the $250K question. I believe this is why they only give reasonable Round 2 questions to players who have used both jumps. Otherwise, if they got the $100K question right and jumped the $250K, then they’d be looking at a $75K bet for a 1-in-4 chance at a $475K payoff, which are still very good odds. And I notice they always put one of these Lach Trash questions in Round 1 which not even the audience has any chance of knowing, to force the contestant to use one jump in Round 1 so they can’t jump both the $100K and $250K.
Combined with the fact that Millionaire no longer pays for travel and lodging for individual contestants, much less 10 Fastest Finger contestants per episode they used to provide for, I think it’s very clear that they’ve suffered a budget cut and are intentionally trying to make sure nobody wins the million to compensate. (Also, any money beyond $250K is now awarded as an annuity – $25K/year for 10 years for the $500K, or $37.5K/year for 20 years for the million. Make of that what you will.) Or if you just compare the questions on today’s Millionaire with those from the 10th Anniversary Specials, the difference in writing quality should be very clear.
By the way, if you want more evidence they’re throwing in nigh-impossible questions, just look for the ones which ask about obscure details from the lives of famous people before they became famous. There’s usually one per game in Round 1, and often a second in Round 2. Questions like that were the main reason I quit watching the show; nobody’s ever going to get them right except when it’s statistically advantageous to take a blind guess.
I somewhat agree with you; this show should probably be renamed “Who wants to be a Quarter-Millionaire?” since they make questions impossible past $250,000. Still, I do think they give contestants a fair shot to get to that point, considering there have been several $100,000 questions that I knew (like the Pepsi floating and the John Locke ones) and, on occasion, a good majority of the audience knew. It’s all about your knowledge and when to use your jumps. Like one lady last season jumped the second and third questions in Round 1 even though she had a correct hunch on both of them and then made it all the way to $100,000 (a question that she undoubtedly knew the answer to), so had she not used the jumps she could of seen the million dollar question. Besides, at least people have more guts on this version than the British version. There, despite the questions being easier, no one has won even 150,000 pounds (=around $250,000) since 2010, which is fairly easy with the money tree they have (50Ksafety point, 75k, and then 150K).
I do agree they often give contestants a fair shot up to that point, but not always. They always have a fair shot to get to Round 2 (like I said above, there’s two jumps and only one Lach Trash question in Round 1), and the $100K questions are often reasonable, as well as the occasional $250K questions. I’ve known my fair share of them too. But I don’t think *every* contestant has a fair shot at getting to $250K. I suspect they roll out the more arcane, trashy questions at $100K and $250K for a while after a big win to get the budget back on track, and they give the more reasonable questions in Round 2 if previous contestants have gone out on or before the $100K, since they have more money in the coffers to give away.
The exact same thing applies to Wheel of Fortune – when players have won big in the front game, expect the bonus round to be something ridiculously hard with uncommon letters of the alphabet or more vowels than consonants, like trying to guess “JURY BOX” from “??R? ???”, after which Pat Sajak will say “If you had solved that, we’d all be in jail” for the umpteenth time. But if not even the winner broke 5 figures in the front game, the bonus round is liable to be “?LL’S ?ELL T??T EN?S ?ELL”.
I see some of your points. However, Joann Chan in Season 9 (the first of Super Mix format) had a chance to get to the 1 Million dollar question had she not guessed and gone with the audience on the 250K question…also in season 9 and a few in season 10, some contestants got the 100K question right with a jump still and they blew it on the 250K question. And those they got right were reasonable such as which is a name of a character in both Lord of the Rings and Lord of the Flies.
There are about 2-3 weeks of Millionaire each season that I know will instantly be not so good because of the budget and the questions are hard or contestants are stupid…but that’s only 2 or 3 weeks out of 35 weeks of episodes. Pretty good if you ask me. Plus, every show has a budget. It’s pretty understandable…I have seen arcane questions before on Millionaire but not as often as you say it. I definitely see the pop culture obscure ones. Those annoy me. You’re definitely right about Wheel of Fortune! Haha! I didn’t think Andrew Miller’s questions were that bad. His 500K question was a lot better than some of the ones I’ve seen before. The 2 most outrageous questions I’ve seen have come from last season and in season 8. One clip should be of Jeff Birt in season 8 and his 250K question asked how many SS Numbers have been issues since it started. Then last year, on a one question contestant for a 1,000 dollars, they always do what the next question would’ve been for the previous contestant and give it to the one question contestant…the one question contestant got a 500K question for $1000 that was like how much was tuition at Harvard when JFK attended in 1936.
But aside from those, I haven’t seen overtly ridiculous ones…there was a 500K question asking the only women ever to be awarded the medal of honor was in what war. That isn’t bad if you know a little history.
Plus, I’ve seen plenty of weeks where within a stretch, back to back or even a full 1-2 week stretch of contestants got huge amounts of money.
This was a REALLY good game! Almost reminded me of Ogi Ogas (his game, not him), except in a luck kind of way. He was so right with everything. If he would’ve kept going, he could’ve weaseled his way to $1 million, I think! I was LITERALLY cheering at the top of my lungs when he won the $250,000!
Good game! :D
I disagree with Wheel. I am able to solve what sometimes look like really hard puzzles. But hard word puzzles can’t be compared to hard Millionaire questions. Wheel is a very easy game to win compared to Millionaire.
What I would like to see if a week where you are not allowed to walk away; you either win $1000, $25000, or $1,000,000. I feel so many people could have won the million had they not walked away, this case iterating my point. If Andrew could not walk away he would have faced the million dollar question.
Obviously this would be a bad permanent change, but for a week it could produce interesting results… if they pick smart contestants.
There’s a format out there precisely as you said, and its called the Hot Seat format. It’s been around in Australia since 2009. 6 contestants fight it out over 15 questions. You only have 1 lifeline, a pass, which in itself is a risk for you may not get back in the hot seat and you will not be invited back (whereas those who don’t get in the hot seat at all are). If you answer any question incorrectly, you’re out of the game with nothing and the current top prize goes out of play. The person in the hot seat for the final question gets a guaranteed $1,000 and a free shot at the current top prize, which could be between $10,000 and $1,000,000 depending on how many questions are answered correctly. I personally feel that format, while good for Australia and maybe even the UK, wouldn’t work well in America for it would take a lot of the drama out that viewers have grown accustomed to.