Ever since Deal or No Deal debuted, I've been TiVoing the show and watching it with increasing speed. Thanks to my remote control, I now make it through an hour episode in about seven minutes. When I pause, I can see that the program has gotten a bit more condescending and a lot more repetitive. There have been many games that were simply not interesting because the contestant knocked out the big amounts near the beginning so the whole hour was to see if they'd go home with $10,000 or $20,000.
Last night, they had on a two-hour episode and I guess I should insert the SPOILER ALERT right about here in case you recorded it and haven't watched yet.
Still with me? Fine. Last night, they had the second half on a game from the previous episode plus two complete games. No one won huge amounts. All three players went home with amounts under $100,000 — but what was interesting was that two of them picked the case with the million dollars in it. One sold it for $99,000 and the other — who obviously got out way before the producers and audience were expecting him to — took $81,000.
Now, neither one of those folks were likely to take home the million. They play out the game after the deal is accepted and the last guy, the one who settled for $81 grand, would have reached the point where he had either $75,000 or the million and he had a bank offer of, I believe, $561,000. If someone got that far, they almost certainly would have grabbed the dough. I doubt anyone would go down to the last case unless their last two choices were both six figure amounts.
Still, it's fascinating that the million was picked in two of three consecutive games. I guess that's why I still TiVo the thing…to see those odd moments. This one was pretty odd.