Jehan Shamsid-Deen Leaves “Millionaire” with $250,000 in Most Exciting Finish in Years
I don’t think it’s a big surprise to anyone (nor is it bad to admit it) that the daytime Who Wants to be a Millionaire hasn’t had a lot of really exciting moments in the past two or three years. We had a few big thrills in primetime but nothing has really created an incredibly tense exciting atmosphere in a very long time, which is a huge reason why the show is a success. Thankfully today’s carryover contestant, Jehan Shamsid-Deen, changed that. Jehan started the show with $250,000 and no lifelines going for $500,000. Her question was:
The only woman ever to be awarded the Medal of Honor received it for her service in what war?
A: Iraq War B: Vietnam War
C: World War I D: U.S. Civil War
I won’t put the video on here just to be fair and legal and all but I’m sure there’s an easy way to find it because videos like this only create exposure for the show.
She rattled off every fact possible about the lady but had trouble matching the facts to the exact war. It was an exciting 45 second race against the clock to get the answer. Sadly she did not get it in time, but had she just guessed with her gut instinct, C, she would have lost anyway. The correct answer was D. It was a thrilling moment that’s right up there with contestants like Ogi Ogas and Lyn Payne.
Jehan is currently number one in the Tournament of Ten bracket and barring some freak accident where everyone wins $250,000 or $500,000 in an unbelievably short amount of time, we’ll be seeing her with one of the best shots of anyone to win the million dollars. It’s a large risk for her. In the tournament she will see a million dollar question and has to decide to risk her $250,000 to answer or not. If she misses she drops to $25,000. However, she blew me away with what she knew and how she played and she’s definitely my favorite to take home the million bucks.
I'm curious. Is there anyone left on that list that were carry overs from the prime time special back in August?
Either way, that list is starting to get really competitive…
I agree that it was one of the show's better moments in recent years, but it seemed very odd that the contestant would know the name of the female Medal of Honor winner and a partial name of the battle she was in, but not know the name of the war she was in. My guess is that when Jehan ended her first taping day, she noted that her next question in the topic tree would be about the Medal of Honor, so she went back to her hotel and tried to study as much as she could about the subject. That might explain why she was able to recall only bits and pieces of what she had recently read. If that's what happened in this case, then kudos to her for doing everything she could to improve her chances. I'm sure that any serious contestant would do the same thing if they were in that situation.
I've wondered about this too. Why the subject tree can't be something they keep on a video feed that isn't publicly released, I'll never know. It hardly gets enough screen time to be of any interest anyhow.
Not to mention, my namesake friend, that there are 4 $100K & 5 $50K winners as of yesterday. This should be an interesting tourney comming up next month.
To be fair, I think the players actually see the menu & have an idea of what the next question might be & Meredith sometimes mentions the category that the question deals with. It's not like leaking any gameplay information that sometines produces spoilers or anything like that. The menu may or may not help the player in terms of recall or anything like that.
As for the question, had no clue on that one. I too thought it was C. Oh well.
Wait, does she drop to $25,000 and lose $225,000, or does she drop to $225,000 and lose $25,000?
It it's the latter, it doesn't seem like it's that large of a risk….
I swear to god I'm dyslexic or something because I read over that friggin thing like three times to look for typos and found nothing.
She drops to $25,000 and loses $225,000. I fixed it. Sorry.
That 45-second "race" was quite exciting. In the last 5 seconds or so, I was just waiting for her to declare a final answer, but it is a good thing she didn't! Jehan is very smart and I can not wait to see how she plays her $1,000,000 question (she has a good shot at holding that number one seed)
It might just be me but the show has been ruined. Remember that hour long show with the three life lines and the Fastest Finger from ten years ago. Not to mention its Superior ladder and host. Plus the contestants had all the time in the world to answer a question now that's great. Now it isn't a horrible question but rename it the $2 MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION where all the questions are from a pre-picked category and a wrong answer costs you half your bank. Add a tournament of ten style end of the month with all the millionaires risking 100 grand on one million dollar question
Are you talking about replacing the entire show with that, or just the Tournament of Ten? Either way, I don't really like it all that much.
The funny thing is she bumped carver out of the Tourney :)
I agree, Ed. Maybe they shouldn't give out the categories beforehand. It's really unnecessary when the contestant already gets to look at the question before deciding whether to answer or quit.
My first thought … Who is the composer of "Swanee River"?
Alex, I love how you describe the possibility of everyone winning at least $250K in a month as a "freak accident". :P