Last night, I watched the first two installments of NBC’s week-long game show spectacular, DEAL OR NO DEAL. It’s a ludicrously simple premise that’s quickly addictive. I can see easily where the show might fall off the rails, but right now I’m liking it and recommending it to you. It airs again tonight, tomorrow night, and Friday night. Check your local listings.
Here’s the idea: 26 identically dressed models (think Robert Palmer videos) stand on stage holding numbered cases. Those cases hold dollar figures ranging from one penny to a million dollars. The contestant picks a case. The contestant is guaranteed that dollar figure, hidden inside the case. After that the contestant calls out cases from the stage to see which dollar amounts he didn’t pick, thus increasing the odds that he knows what his case holds. Every so often, “The Banker” calls to make a cash buyout offer of the case — giving the contestant the option of cold hard solid cash versus possible or probable payouts in the case. The more big dollar amounts left to be found, the greater the cash payout offered. It’s all about timing and working the odds.
The game play is a lot of fun, and Mandel is picked for his ability to be personable and funny. There’s an annoying bit where the contestant’s friends and family join them on stage to help make decisions, and Mandel is there to milk it for all the comedy and drama he can. Since he doesn’t know the cash amount in the case the contestant chose, he gets to host the game while playing partisan to the contestant. He’s still new at hosting game shows, though, as there are frequent times during the episode that they insert voice dubs to help explain the game. With a little more experience, they won’t need so many.
The graphics, staging, and sound effects are all top notch. Lots of transparent bits, blue lights, quick sweeping sound effects. It follows on the likes of MILLIONAIRE and GREED and all the rest of that generation of game show. Mandel has his catch phrases, and varies them enough while taking them all seriously to make it work.
“The Banker” is the only real groan-inducing part of the show. When it comes time to offer a contestant a cash payment to buy back their case, the banker calls Howie Mandel to relay his offer. It’s cheesy. There’s a little cordless phone on the podium that Mandel answers and pretends to have a conversation with before relaying the news back to the contestant. I don’t mind having the shadowy banker above the stage the way he is, but I’d rather just see a tote board with a dollar figure above him giving away the offers. Mark Evanier suggests making “The Banker” into a character who wheels and deals with the contestants, also. That’s not a bad idea, either. Calling the host on a phone is a bad idea, though.
DEAL OR NO DEAL will likely become a weekly series if the ratings this week are any good. I hope they are, and I suggest giving it a shot in the next three nights if you haven’t already. It’s not a ground-breaking show, and it’s not the best thing ever, but it is entertaining in small doses. I look forward to searching the web next for the in-depth mathematical analyses for when to take the deal and when not to. I crunched a lot of numbers while watching the two episodes last night, but I’m not sure what any of them meant. If I were on the show, I think I’d wait for my first $100,000 offer from the Banker, and then run with it.
If you go the website, by the way, you can also play the game. Since all the programming it requires is a random number generator, you could play it forever. It’s not like other trivia-based game shows, whose video game spin-offs have a finite number of games.
Update: Ratings for DEAL OR NO DEAL are good through two nights. If this keeps up through week’s end, you can bet good money on seeing DEAL OR NO DEAL: THE SERIES by March, if not sooner. If it weren’t for the Winter Olympics, I’d guess you’d see it by February sweeps.
