Deal Or No Deal

[DrJWJustice]

And for something positive, it was GREAT to hear your voice again, Randy West!  Here's to hoping for a long and successful run.

[tyshaun1]

[quote name=\'DrJWJustice\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 10:53 PM\']And for something positive, it was GREAT to hear your voice again, Randy West!  Here's to hoping for a long and successful run.

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Ummm..... correct me if I'm wrong, but Randy's voice wasn't heard on air.

Tyshaun

[Matt Ottinger]

I hate myself for liking it, because it really goes against everything I believe a game show ought to be, starting with the idea that a player should be rewarded for actually DOING something.  But yeah, I liked it too.  Howie was marvelous.  He knew where to be funny and where to build up the excitement, a pretty neat trick for a first-time GS host.

I'm with SplitSecond on the editing; some of it was jarring enough to almost take me out of the game.  I'm also on record as saying that too much editing sucks the drama out of a game, and this show had way too much editing.

If this was a LIVE show for example (and I see no huge reason why it couldn't be) and it was directed well (and I see no huge reason why it couldn't be), viewers at home would be climbing the walls with excitement.

But OK, props to NBC for getting it done about as well as we could have expected.  Now we wait for the ratings.

[The Ol' Guy]

Still letting it sink in...I'm looking forward to the next couple of nights to see how the straddling works. Some admittedly half-baked thoughts:
Lots of good - Howie stayed focused on the job, nice set, great models.

I agree with Matt (I guess now it's both Matts) about the "playing without earning" factor. It just feels odd - "Here, we're giving away money! You'll never lose!" Even a dork can leave with a penny. Also, in Millionaire, there is the excitement that builds as you progress to higher amounts - the million is always in view as a potential goal. Here, your chance at a million can disappear as fast as your first choice out of 6 after picking your case. The game changes to "How Much Am I Going To Lose NOW?", since every high dollar value eliminated kills your offer from the banker. I'm going to watch some more and see what's really in it for the home viewer.
Had to laugh about one thing, tho...love playing the on-line version at NBC.com -
I was kinda hoping the banker on the show would offer some of the same kinds of amounts the computer game did. Howie: "Okay, Mrs. Van - the banker is offering you $15,642 for your case." Heck..I'm not just getting 15 thousand...I'm getting an extra 642 bucks! I felt that was an interesting way to play with a contestant's head. Anytime there's a number instead of a "0", it's mo' money for me!

[DrJWJustice]

[quote name=\'tyshaun1\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 11:15 PM\'][quote name=\'DrJWJustice\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 10:53 PM\']And for something positive, it was GREAT to hear your voice again, Randy West!  Here's to hoping for a long and successful run.

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Ummm..... correct me if I'm wrong, but Randy's voice wasn't heard on air.

Tyshaun

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I'll retract and apologize if so, but that voiceover at the start sounded like him to me.  If I'm wrong, and in my defence, I was in a crowded restaurant at the time, so I couldn't catch everything.

[chris319]

And someone tell me why ABC passed on this AFTER shooting it's own version?

Because they're a lot smarter than NBC?

Howie was great, much better than I expected.

In order to truly appreciate Randy's work you have to be in the studio. This audience was red hot.

The show is a contrived piece of s**t. It sucks big donkey chunks. There is no game, merely game fumes.

We are now :45 into the show and I am tired of this contestant. I'm even more tired of her husband injecting himself into the game play. Several of the contestant's remarks came off as less than spontaneous, IMO, i.e. scripted/rehearsed. Just my humble opinion.

SplitSecond was spot on about the directing/editing. If I didn't know better I could swear one B.E. was moonlighting. The directing/editing likewise sucked big donkey chunks.

If a contestant winds up winning less than $1,000, it's going to be one hell of an anticlimax after 50 minutes.

And the banker phone? Puh-leeze.

[DrJWJustice]

I've seen a few eps of the Aussie version, so I have something to which I can compare tonight's show.  The Aussies also involve family members, but pretty much only to the extent that Millionaire does -- maybe a little bit more.

I thought the dark banker effects were very effective, but that damn banker phone was, well, ridiculous.  Anybody who's seen the original episodes of UK WWTBAM knows exactly what that's all about, although the phone actually served a useful purpose on the show in that case.  

Howie Mandel did an admirable job for his first time hosting a show like this.  If it lasts, I have every reason to believe he'll be in top form in no time at all.  

Beyond that,  I got the same impression I got from the Aussie version -- a lot of fluff, but very little stuff.  It's exciting the first few times, to be sure,  but I'm betting it gets old pretty fast with the American audience.  However, in deference to Randy and others on this group,  I hope I'm wrong about that.

[BrandonFG]

Chris C., what would you suggest for an improvement, other than cancelling the show altogether?

[davidhammett]

[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 09:53 PM\']BTW, where did this show tape?
[/quote]

Taped at CBS Television City, stage 46 (the East building).

I'll only echo most of what has been said.  Well executed, but not much of a game.  Editing is questionable at best.  The "let's just bring on a contestant just like WWTBAM does" annoys the heck out of me.

In some ways, it reminds me of Match Game -- mainly because there's not much to the game, so it's up to how it's produced to determine if it's any good or not.  The production of MG depended on the chemistry of the celebs (and we saw both some good and bad examples of that); the production of this show depends on how well the drama is milked.  (And, fwiw, there was a *little* more game to MG.)  For my taste, the drama gets milked just a bit more than I would like, but it wouldn't surprise me if it plays well to middle America.  We'll see soon.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 09:04 PM\']Howie was great, much better than I expected.
[/quote]
Howie was FANTASTIC. Little nervous at the start, but he got into a groove really quickly. I do think he could stand to develop a little ad-lib other than just "Open the case", though.

We are now :45 into the show and I am tired of this contestant. I'm even more tired of her husband injecting himself into the game play. Several of the contestant's remarks came off as less than spontaneous, IMO, i.e. scripted/rehearsed. Just my humble opinion.

And this is what happens when you "cast" your contestants. That said, the schaudenfreude when she cracked the (remaining) Big Fella and the bank offer took a crap on her was quite enjoyable. (Unfortunately, that's not the feeling the producers were going for, I wager.)

And the banker phone? Puh-leeze.

Yeah, right there with you, espeically since they saved a few bucks by making the Banker a non-speaking role. Howie, yer no Bob Newhart.

I WANT to like it. I will definitely watch the rest just to enjoy Howie. But I don't think it's gonna catch on.

[LA the DJ]

Well, I liked this show a bit more than expected. The only problem I see here is that the lack of actual game is going to mean that this won't have an incredibly long run. The tension is great, but I kind of get the feeling it's a show that will get old quick. It's a lottery show....A damn slick lottery show, but lottery nonetheless. I'll enjoy it while it's here, but I don't see myself watching it a whole lot in the future.

[nbcburbank]

I think this is the sort of show that is cool for a little while in the same way that Prime Time Millionaire was cool when it first hit the air. Then people get burned out on it rather quick. Yes D or no D has little substance. However for a show dangerously close to being about nothing I really enjoyed it.

[SplitSecond]

[quote name=\'TeppanYaki\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 08:10 PM\']I thought it was mentioned that it was ISOs being used since there were 10 cameras; not that we have the ability to do ISOs here, but it would have helped me out yesterday during our symphony taping that we did.  No big -- still get to use 24p so I'm happy.
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Just because 10 cameras were being used, ISOs weren't necessarily rolling on all 10 (although in this case, they probably were).  You might just have the 10 cameras for your line cut and only be rolling ISOs on the four most important cameras (e.g., host single, contestant single, jib, and family group shot)

Bricon, do you happen to remember how many ISOs were running on Squares, and on which cameras?

[SplitSecond]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 10:04 PM\']SplitSecond was spot on about the directing/editing. If I didn't know better I could swear one B.E. was moonlighting. The directing/editing likewise sucked big donkey chunks.
[/quote]
To me, it looks more like bad editing than bad direction.  And the specific kind of bad editing I see makes me think that it's more a result of network micromanagement when it came to giving notes on the show, not necessarily an original bad edit job.

That said, my major gripe about this show was the pacing.  Howie did a great job and was clearly following direction very well, but did it not occur to anyone that once all the large cases have been revealed, you need to blow through the rest of the game because people have stopped caring (including, very obviously on tonight's episode, the contestant)?  It clearly didn't occur to anyone until editing, because it was obvious that Howie was still trying to drag the rest of the game out in a misguided attempt to create drama where there wasn't any, but the pace was being picked up only because the last 10 minutes of the show was edited in an friggin' Osterizer.

It's nice to see that Randy actually brings his supply of amphetamines to the studios with him now.  Sharing is caring.

[MrBuddwing]

My .03:

Other posters have already mentioned it, but let me put it another way: This is a show that relies purely on contestants' luck. I remember Mark Goodson, one of the deans, if not the dean of game show producers, expressing surprise that "Let's Make a Deal" was a success, because it was so totally dependent on luck. Perish the thought that I'm comparing LMaD with DoND, but I could see Goodson's point: Contestants on LMaD won, not by bringing any physical or mental skill to the game, but by simply choosing the right box, curtain or door. (I guess the fast pace, outlandish costumes and Monty Hall's rapid-fire repartee made it seem more than what it was.)

The same basic principle would seem to apply to the U.S. version of DoND. I'm intrigued to hear that the Australian version required contestants to win a trivia round in order to qualify for the main game.

I'll probably watch all five episodes, but I suspect I'll lose interest before it's all over. For me, one of the pleasures of watching a game show is shouting the correct answers at the TV (which is absolutely no predictor of how I would actually do on the show), but with DoND, I'm just as in the dark as the contestant and his/her rooting section. At the end of the day, DoND is, IMHO, as exciting as watching a glorified Bingo game, with much greater money amounts at stake.

But yes, Howie Mandel did a terrific job, and yes, the models are gorgeous.