I've now watched two episodes of the weeklong run on NBC of "Deal or No Deal." I'm torn between whether or not I like it.
NBC's description of the show at their website was far too simplistic. Here's my take. The contestant chooses a briefcase. It is opened to reveal a dollar amount which is eliminated from a list of all the available dollar amounts. Of course, the contestant would love for all the dollar amounts except $500,000, $750,000 or $1 Million to be removed.
After the contestant has made several choices, the "banker" will call to offer the contestant an amount of money to walk away from the game. Hence, the "deal or no deal." It doesn't get anymore complicated than that.
At one point in last night's episode, a woman was crying because she couldn't figure out what to do. There were four cases left, three had low dollar amounts attached to them and one had $1 Million. The "banker" offered her $201,000. Hmmm, either $1 Million or something like $5, $500, or $2,000. Yeah, take the deal. And she did, after several tense moments.
The next contestant had most of the high amounts eliminated from the game early on and I suspect he was continuing to play in order to get the banker to offer higher deals. At the end of his run, it was either continue to go for the $500,000 case or $99,000. He took the deal. It wasn't going to get any better.
I have to wonder though, who NBC is catering the show to. At one point during the second contestant's run, it was mentioned in a caption that there was "1 in 4 chance" of picking the $500,000 briefcase. Uh, duh, ya think?
Plus, the so-called "banker" is a hokey device. Just let the show's host make the offer.
That, of course, brings me to the host. Howie Mandel. He did such a poor job of acting with regard to talking with "The Banker" on a cordless phone that nobody was fooled. Even the contestants were making fun of "The Banker."
The show is also heavily edited and voices were overdubbed later in the studio.
"Deal or No Deal" has potential but I guess that once they tidy things up, it will be too much like "The Price is Right."
