The All New US DOND is as slick as you like

By | December 5, 2018

In fact if it wasn’t for the slightly updated set and a new Banker you’d be hard pressed to discern it from the show ten years ago.

If you want to watch it I imagine you could probably find it on Youtube or Reddit or something, or even use the Dark Arts. The series will run on Wednesdays on cable channel CNBC, but a “holiday special” aired on the main NBC Network on Monday (making it surely the earliest Christmas Special for a gameshow since The Crystal Maze mid-advent Special last year).

In the spirit of Christmas, I’ll put some thoughts down underneath a cut so you can avoid being spoiled too much.

Nice Christmassy set decoration, although changing all the graphics to red on white and white on red for Christmas is a bit of a Christmas misfire I reckon, here’s something I tweeted, I don’t understand why the values that have been eliminated (red background) are easier to discern than the values that are in white that are still in play.

It’s less bad here close-up, but in a wide shot it doesn’t look great.

The big ‘twist’ in this new version, other than the fact that the Banker is now a female, is that once during the game the contestant can make a Counter Offer, and would be forced to play on if the Banker turns it down. I have two issues with the way they’ve done this  – firstly, the Banker’s offers are already close-to-the-mean generous, which suggests that the amount of movement the contestant realistically has is minimal, which means we’re probably not going to see the kind of moves you would hope for – either the contestant is going to ask for a couple of grand more and there’s no drama, or they’re going to ask for something stupid and there’s no drama. Secondly for something that’s meant to be a negotiation, the Banker remains an almost complete non-character, a silhouetted algorithm in a dress effectively. I could understand it if there was any player/Banker interaction like in the European versions and there’s an element of mind gaming, here we just get Howie Mandel going “uh-huh… uh-huh, OK, the offer is $109,000.” In theory it’s an entertaining idea, in practice I don’t think the US set-up works to the twist’s advantage.

Also the guy lost over $330k and it was all “that’s a pity. Join us next time for more Deal or No Deal!” No! The game is inherently about living with the consequences of your actions. Milk it!

Anyway the show remains slick and watchable – and very American for better or (let’s be honest) worse. Better soundtrack than before I reckon. How easy it will be to watch when it airs first-run on CNBC I don’t know.

13 thoughts on “The All New US DOND is as slick as you like

  1. Marcoraymondo

    Can I just check? Is anyone else out there just giving all five of their IACGMOOH app votes to friend of the bar Anne H? I think she’s doing so well out there I genuinely want her to win! Go team Governess!!!!

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      I think it was pretty clear early on she probably wasn’t going to win – midtable is probably about right if we’re being honest based on the what we’ve seen, not enough of an extrovert really, but she gave most things a go and she’s done everyone proud.

      Reply
      1. Marcoraymondo

        Well I still think she did herself proud and when she’s gets back to Blighty and back on the Bar, she deserves a huge round of applause from all of us!

        Well done Anne

        Ps – in case you didn’t rumble, I wanted you for queen of the jungle x

        Reply
  2. Keith from Chicago

    A bit o trivia, New US briefcase model Brenda Lowe is a two-time late round contestant on Survivor, which is now late its 37th US series, and she had briefly been a model on a Spanish language game show in between. The host of Survivor, Jeff Probst was prior to that, the host of “Rock & Roll Jeopardy!”

    Reply
  3. Brekkie

    Back to Deal and always think the UK just pitched the prize right – you had to play to get the truly life changing money, but could get a nice chunk of money with a right deal. The dilemma was there.

    Here the board is weighted far too heavily over $100k – you’ve basically a one in seven chance of over $50k and I suspect offers over that value come in early, especially if they’re near the mean. It comes down more to greed rather than genuine dilemmas.

    Reply
    1. David B

      The board is just crazy. The number of boxes travelling ‘between’ powers of ten are 1, 2, 4, 6, 2, 4 and 6. There’s not a lot of logic there. I don’t know why there’s not more values in the 1k-100k range, since surely that’s where most of the ‘pain’ lies?

      Reply
    2. Brandon

      It’s the same problem that the Dutch original Miljoenenjacht has, or at least used to have and I can’t see any way they could have fixed it. Because most of the amounts on the board are huge, even the earlier offers are still life changing money. I agree that the UK version got the prizes just right. Let’s imagine you’ve got the 4th highest amount and 2nd highest amount left on the board. According to the stat-o-matic, that would get you a fair deal of £72,855, and there is more of a interesting decision as to whether you should take it. In the Dutch version, that offer would be €1.3 million. On the US version, it would be over half a million. Those amounts are so high that doing anything other than saying deal would just be greedy.

      Reply
  4. David

    Interesting situation on the first ep last night, and showed the new counteroffer is intriguing if done right..

    Got down to final three, and it was a extremely good board: 100, 400K, 1M (and this was after knocking out 300K last round). Offer was 425K.

    You figure this:

    Knock out the million, F2 offer is probably 225K or thereabouts- a little more than the average so the player doesn’t try to go all the way unless the greed aspect comes into play.

    Knock out the 400K, F2 offer I’d probably put at 525K or so, again a little more than average so unless the player is greedy they would likely take it.

    Knock out the 100- I don’t know if any offer would be accepted, since 400K would be the minimum the player could win so they’d probably go all the way- I’d probably think 750K as a hail mary.

    What does the player do? Counteroffer with 500K- Which is slightly more than average, but it avoids the 2nd and 3rd scenarios.

    Banker accepts the counter- and the player would have knocked out the million next in the proveout (though she did have 400K, so the 1st scenario would have backfired anyway)

    Reply
  5. Danny Kerner

    This years xmas special of the crystal maze will be goin out on boxing day so much later than i was expecting and is the closest to xmas except it is on the wrong side of the event. 8pm still however.

    Reply

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