Deal or No Deal Island

Deal or No Deal, classic game show that's simple enough is put into a hybrid "Survivor" show. Basically extending the show into bit pieces to extend ONE winner throughout multiple episodes competing in stupid activities. The host is some b-list character actor that I'm sure few people have ever heard of.

You don't need to take a formula that already works and add to it. What's the saying? "Don't mess with perfection."? You wouldn't want to watch people having to eat bull balls or run through mud to get to the wheel on Wheel of Fortune? The game is already peaked at where it's at.

I honestly don't know what they're thinking at this point, except to drag it out more and "try something new"... except it's pointless. It's a show that's doomed to fail before it even airs most likely. I can guarantee most won't like it.

Yes, it's deal or no deal meets Survivor... Sorta. The players are mostly interesting, but there are a few that are a little annoying or they just sorta blend into the background. The challenge games are fine - the loser of the challenges are up for elimination. The twist that is you don't beat the banker in the final game you go home and if you do, you send someone else home. I sorta like this idea just because it's different. I like that Claudia is on from the original game show. I have a feeling Howie is the banker on the ship though since I don't feel like they could really have the show without him. Anyway, I recommend giving it a try and see what you think about it.

This program is so unbelievably bad, the only thing that has kept me watching it is Boston Rob. They better make him a co-host if, miraculously, it gets picked up for a second season. Some people haven't like the Survivor aspects of it but to me, that's the only interesting part and even they are pretty tame and lame. The actual game of Deal or No Deal is not too bad, it's the 45 minutes of blather inbetween that make me feel like I'm wasting my life. And it's another American program of scheming, unpleasant, dishonest, backstabbing people will ill intent that I'm sure no one needs. If I wanted to watch that, I'd watch the news.

It is not bad. I will say that Rob is the factor keeping this show interesting.

As one reviewer said, the person facing the banker technically needs to eliminate high cases to be personally successful thus is ultimately working against the goal of driving up the grand total. This needs to be addressed.

A change that I think would make the show more interesting is this: If the person facing the banker loses they are eliminated. However, if the person facing the banker wins, they stay in the game, now have immunity, and the remaining contestants who aren't facing the banker have to do a Survivor type of vote to decide who goes home. The winner of that day's challenge would still have immunity thus would not be eligible to be voted off either.

This would drastically up the strategy and the alliance factors of the show which they are trying to make us feel like is important this season but they really are not.

Think about the game play back at camp before the evening's game with this change made. Just a suggestion.

I've never watched Deal or No Deal for more than a couple minutes because the concept just isn't that interesting to me (it's just statistics), especially if I'm not invested in the player. In this case, I was intrigued by the island competition aspect and enticed by Joe Manganiello and Boston Rob.

However, I ended up being pretty disappointed. Joe's charisma was dialed way down by the structure, and his lines seemed overly scripted. I enjoyed seeing Rob compete, but it wasn't enough to make up for many of the the other contestants, who schemed, back-stabbed and lied for no discernible reason, certainly not for gameplay. Without the excuse of starvation and exhaustion, I felt embarrassed for these people displaying such unearned personal vitriol for other players, and it ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

It was interesting seeing the compassionate side of Rob unable to hold back the bloodthirst of first-time players, the personal offers spiced things up sometimes, and I didn't so much mind the final player, but I doubt I'll be watching future seasons.