Somewhere at NBC or Endemol, an executive said, "People really like Deal or No Deal, but our testing shows that they don't like the fact that on rare occasion, a contestant wins less than $50,000. How can we change this for our new show?"
And so the rules were fashioned.
How does the "1" not win a boatload of cash every time? The first few questions are certainly not challenging, and even if one of them falls into the cracks of "basic things you just don't happen to know," the first "help" should take care of that. So you build up a very nice sum of money quickly, keep playing until you've used your second "help" (I hope that's not the official term), then quit.
I was also put off by the lack of penalty for using the "helps." Another way to ensure a huge cash jackpot every time.
The only thing that surprised me more than the fact that the "helps" were having the mob tell you why they picked their answer was the fact that the members of the mob actually honestly told the contestant how sure they were of their choice. There was absolutely no reason to assist the "1," yet they did.
[quote name=\'whoserman\' post=\'134505\' date=\'Oct 14 2006, 02:04 PM\']Remember, the mob wants you to go really far, and THEN lose. That way, they get more money. It's all a matter of strategy.[/quote]
Except that there's not enough reward for the contestant to play on after using their second "help." The mob's strategy is to watch the contestant lose before quitting the game. And if the contestant has used all of their assistance, you know that they're on the edge of quitting the game, especially since a) they didn't know the answer to the last question they played and b) they know that the next question will be harder. So if you're in the mob, you'd better be trying to get the contestant to lose while you have the chance.
Things I liked:
I liked the side of the set that contained the mob.
I liked the different type of answer choices for the first, easy question to spice things up.
I liked the idea of beginning each new question by announcing "1 versus ##," though while actually watching it, something felt weird about the execution (I can't put my finger on it, though).
To be honest, I'm completely neutral about Saget so far. I liked that he got some good jokes in but I didn't like that he apologized after a couple of them (if you're worried about viewers being upset by it, then the correct follow-up to the boyfriend joke was to play dumb and say, "Oh, you mean that he...", not to apologize for the joke).
Because it's got the "nothing better to watch on a Friday night" time slot, I'll probably stumble across it again, but it's definitely not something that I'll go out of my way to see.
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Scott Robinson
