Deal or No Deal

Ok, so America's new favorite game show, Deal or No Deal, is our newest "appointment" tv show. Here's the deal.

There are 26 cases carried by impossibly, inhumanly beautiful women. There are varying amounts of money stashed in each case, from $.01 all the way to $1 million. The contestant chooses one case and keeps it. He is hoping that his case has the million in it. The only way to find out if that's true is to open the other cases. So the cases are opened at intervals (6 at a time, then 5, then 4, etc), and at these intervals, there is a banker who will make the contestant an offer to buy his case back. The banker is playing the odds so that he will pay the lowest amount possible. The contestant is hoping to open cases with small amounts, because at these intervals, the offers go up or down based on the odds of walking away with a lot of money. The contestant is asked, "Deal or no deal?" At this point he may say DEAL and accept the offer, or NO DEAL, at which point he needs to open another interval of cases.

The thing I like about this game is that it doesn't take any trivia knowledge or quick thinking or eating slimy things. It's about luck and timing. You open all small amounts, your offer goes up. You open big amounts, the bank offers you piddly amounts. And it's so easy to root for these folks who come on the show with support from friends and support and tell the host, Howie Mandel, about what they dream of doing with the money.

Anyway, if you haven't yet, I suggest checking it out. It's clean, fun and intense tv.