Deal Or No Deal

[chris319]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 09:20 PM\']Chris C., what would you suggest for an improvement, other than cancelling the show altogether?

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Gathering the tapes of all remaining episodes, all 26 briefcases, the entire set and Howie's earrings, hauling them over to The Grove and having a great big bonfire. I guarantee we'd send a crew. The game as presently conceived is equal parts moribund and unsalvageable.

NBC has been flirting with LMAD or a show containing components thereof for a couple of years now. What LMAD and Treasure Hunt had that DOND lacks completely is imagination. Monty and Stef Hatos did a wonderful job of keeping LMAD fresh for years with the wide variety of deals they did on the show. I think there is a viable show to be done in the same vein as LMAD and TH, but NBC has not yet hit on the right combination of format, producers and talent. The first problem with LMAD '03 was Billy Bush. He was not convincing as an emcee and looked rather bemused throughout it all. The second problem was the audience, which looked like 300 Hollywood waiters earning a day's pay as extras. Yet another problem was that the contestants looked like they had each downed a case of Jolt cola beforehand. It was all Hollywood glitzy and completely devoid of the middle-America Ma and Pa quality which you can still see on TPIR. I would love to see them take another shot at LMAD with Howie Mandel and without the ersatz Hollywood glitz. Or take a shot at Treasure Hunt.

To improve DOND incrementally I would cut down the number of briefcases to maybe 16, get each contestant on and off in three segments or less, and send the banker away with that fake phone shoved up his (ahem) and simply have a model hand Howie an envelope containing the offer amount which Howie would reveal on camera. Perhaps (thinking off the top of my head now) have a sudden-death feature where if a contestant rejects an offer which is greater than the amount in the briefcase she has picked, the game is over. We need to see less of the contestants and the game needs to be telescoped.

[trainman]

Hmm, am I the only one who paused the TiVo to study the closing credits?  There was a great disclaimer, to the effect of "the host's statements about the 'high-security vault' and cash in the briefcases were scripted for dramatic purposes; there was no actual cash in the studio."

Also, I only recognized the names of Claudia Jordan and one other model:  Pilar Lastra, who was Playboy's Miss August 2004.

[chris319]

There was a great disclaimer, to the effect of "the host's statements about the 'high-security vault' and cash in the briefcases were scripted for dramatic purposes; there was no actual cash in the studio."

Did they say anything about preparing the contestants in advance?

[tvrandywest]

Yes, Split, on tape day I was told all ten cameras were iso'd, and I posted that on an ealier thread (why did we start a new one?). Also by way of a response, the show was edited so tightly that we lost much of Howie's charm, wit and drama. He was even better than what made air.

Randy
tvrandywest.com

[joe_capitano]

A few more names that might jog your memory (Linkage embedded):

A.J. Alamasi: a contestant on Christmas Fear Factor last year (should be making the syndication rounds now).

Lindsay Clubine: co-hosts "Get Out" on HDNet.

Kimberly Estrada: played Hilary Swank's fourth opponent in Million Dollar Baby, also hosts Let's go - The Travel Show on ABC Family - and there's that Extreme Dodgeball gig we know about already.

Dawn Olivieri: She was the central character in the UPN reality show The Player.

Leyla Milani: She was runner-up in the WWE Diva Search (appearing in same along with Krystal).

Linkage to some of the rest:

Donna Feldman
Patricia Kara
Bonnie-Jill Laflin
Jill Manas
Marisa Petoro
Yoi Tanabe

Nice of NBC to list them all in the credits. One wishes Price would do the same, but they won't. Shame.

[chris319]

the show was edited so tightly that we lost much of Howie's charm, wit and drama

And hair, too, apparently.

[Craig Karlberg]

To say the least, DoND was more than I expected.  The set looked very nice.  Howie Mandell was very good in his hosting debut.  The gane itself was OK except the parts where the big bucks were removed.  The background music during gameplay was intresting going from a mellpw sound during the selections to a suspenseful tone with the bank offers,  The sound effects during the case reveals reminded me of when the set of On The Cover was being darkened before the bonus round & I didn't mind at that at all(wish the online version used that).  The execution & presentation was solid albeit some iffy editing at times.  I liked how the models were hplding those cases very gently.  The things that bugged me was the hideous looking phone & the way players were chosen ala syndie Millionaire, but I've come to get use to that aspect.  Overall, it's not that bad..  A couple minor tweaks here & there, this show could stick around awhile, maybe ir it gets syndicated in the future,  I'll give DoND a 7.0.

[Robair]

I'm thinking here about one of our old alt.tv.game-shows charter oaks here when I think about the charm of this game for me, and it's fascinating just to see where those offer numbers go. It's apparently some sort of simple algorithm, by the end of the night I was trying to guess them as Howie was on the phone.

What I didn't like about Howie was his throws to commercial...he needs to sharpen that up over the next few days. But having the significant others on the stage for Howie to play off of is a nice touch, and Howie was really exceptional here.

26 models. Good move. Where do you start?

And everyone's comments about how a TV game show needs to be "produced", "scripted" and "edited" are spot on. Sadly, we are in an age where a TV game with agonizing decisions has to be cut to fit. I would rather see a contestant actually go through the agony such as on the original Regis Millionaire. And that's a large part of the show's downside. It could be just as thrilling and just a exciting if there were only 15 boxes, or even as few as 9!

[tvmitch]

I don't have any opinions about this show that havne't been posted already...the biggest gripe for me was the show's editing. "Jarring" is a word someone used earlier, and I think that's the best word to describe what we saw last night.

I found myself comparing our version to a lot of UK DoND that I've seen lately...they use one contestant each 45-minute show. And while the top prize fund is roughly a third of what is on offer here, the host there is very good at building suspension, and there are little if any false edits.

They only use 22 cases in the UK, and the case pick cycle is 5-3-3-3-3 instead of our 6-5-4-3-2-1-1-1-1 (etc.), but the addition of four cases and our 40-44 minutes per show makes up for their 30-34 minutes per show.

In an earlier thread, I talked about how I feared that the show would have the same edit style as every other primetime game NBC has aired in the last six years, and it happened with this show again. After their past relative flops, haven't they learned? (Can I coin "NBC-ized" as this term?)

Another quick con: we don't need the constant on-screen reminders. "Jim Bob has a 95% chance of winning $356."

I would also find a new case-reveal sound effect. After the contestant has taken the deal, we don't need that SFX either.

But for the good stuff: I like Howie. He is doing a great job already. I want him to be more sinister, and I want to hear him elaborate on why the bank is offering this amount, and maybe emphasize the point that this is the contestants' game to play. It's *their* money. $10,000 might make a world of change for someone, stuff like that.

I like the money tree. Eight values of $100,000 or over means that we could see some interesting final rounds where the contestant faces values on that top third of the tree.

Looking forward to tomorrow night.

[cmjb13]

The pacing is off. It's too fast when it comes to opening the briefcases, and too slow everywhere else.

But way too slow when actually taping the show. Yet the edited version is too fast.

I wonder if the rest of the episodes can contain that much excitement.

Absolutely. Stay tuned towards the end of the week.

If this was a LIVE show for example (and I see no huge reason why it couldn't be)

While it could be, it would be a huge headache. Price has been discussing that for years and if anybody could do it, they could. But this show was not done (at least the 3 shows I saw) live to tape.

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

Take a look at the last 3 shows and see if you notice a difference. Randy did not do those shows. But I also don't know if it was the same audience on both days.

espeically since they saved a few bucks by making the Banker a non-speaking role.

Probably offset by the money spent for having the models talk. Who knows whether that makes air or not. Do they have to pay models extra for speaking roles that are taped, but do not air?

What LMAD and Treasure Hunt had that DOND lacks completely is imagination.

But it's a hit in 40 countries. Either something there is working, or there is something wrong with the people in those countries.

send the banker away with that fake phone shoved up his (ahem)

I'm kind of surprised of the feedback towards this. And as stated before, it's a legit phone call. The tech (called CBS electronics in the credits) has to hear the conversation from the banker to determine what offer to put on the board.

The background music during gameplay was intresting going from a mellpw sound during the selections to a suspenseful tone with the bank offers

I think it's better with no background music (the way it was taped)

The sound effects during the case reveals

See above

[Clay Zambo]

I'd like to propose a small amendment to the format: contestant takes a deal, s/he walks out.  End of segment.  Don't show him/her what was in the case.  Let 'em wonder, sweat, and think forever over what might have been.  (Let Howie tease 'em as much as possible, of course.)

That said, it was fine, but hardly appointment TV.  I'm not sure I'll watch for the rest of the week, but it's an awfully busy week anyway.

26 seems like a strange number of cases.  Anybody know how they hit on that?

[Jimmy Owen]

I, for one, would like to see what's in the cases and I think most other viewers would too.  After investing upwards of 45 minutes, we should get a payoff too.  It was somewhat of a let down that the million was taken out of play rather quickly.  Howie kept me watching, though.  I thought he did a great job.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' date=\'Dec 20 2005, 04:40 AM\']Also by way of a response, the show was edited so tightly that we lost much of Howie's charm, wit and drama. He was even better than what made air.[/quote]
And isn't this what we're saying?  How come us fanboys can get such a seemmingly obvious point -- that overediting kills a show like this -- but the people who are actually MAKING it don't understand?

I still say to do this puppy live.

[quote name=\'Clay Zambo\' date=\'Dec 20 2005, 11:24 AM\']I'd like to propose a small amendment to the format: contestant takes a deal, s/he walks out.  End of segment.  Don't show him/her what was in the case.  Let 'em wonder, sweat, and think forever over what might have been.[/quote]
You should know perfectly well that will never happen.  It's not for the contestant's sake, every viewer in America will want to know what was inside.  Can't cheat us all.

[quote name=\'Clay Zambo\' date=\'Dec 20 2005, 11:24 AM\']26 seems like a strange number of cases.  Anybody know how they hit on that?[/quote]
The only thing that came to my mind is that you want an even number because of your display board, and once the player picks her case, you're left with 25, a very common number to play around with.

[quote name=\'mitchgroff\' date=\'Dec 20 2005, 10:05 AM\']I like the money tree. Eight values of $100,000 or over means that we could see some interesting final rounds where the contestant faces values on that top third of the tree.[/quote]
I would think that if we end up with ONLY high-value numbers at the end it would actually be LESS interesting, because there's very little risk.

[Don Howard]

How many times was the word "case" uttered by Howie Mandel during the hour?

[byrd62]

[quote name=\'davidhammett\' date=\'Dec 20 2005, 12:25 AM\'][quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Dec 19 2005, 09:53 PM\']BTW, where did this show tape?
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Taped at CBS Television City, stage 46 (the East building).

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It doesn't matter whether the show is on NBC (Deal or No Deal), ABC (Dancing with the Stars), or Fox (American Idol), they all want to tape at CBS Television City.  True, there's that matter of technical superiority, but in the case of DoND, why CBS Television City and not NBC Burbank?