Deal or No Deal?

Noel Edmonds returns as host of this new spin on the tired gameshow genre. Instead of using questions to test a contestants knowledge, the show uses a series of random boxes to test the players luck and nerve.

The programme when watched for the first time seems to be an interesting new idea that has not been done before. Its not until you watch a few of these episodes that you realise how tedious it can be. All that seems to happen is a rather annoying contestant chooses boxes by calling out numbers and seeing which amount is inside. After a week of this you suddenly realise how boring it is compared to other gameshows.

In other gameshows the viewer is able to 'take part' by shouting answers at the TV screen. Here all the viewer can do is to watch and become increasingly bored.

A good idea, maybe for a one off programme. I do not think it will last long though.

So here's the format: There are random boxes containing cash awards that the contestant eliminates one by one. Occasionally a phone will ring which the presenter answers and then offers the contestant cash to drop out now (the call was from 'the banker', rhyming slang perhaps?). The offers are poor at the start, until there are only a few boxes left. And that's it, no intelligence required.

How anyone can watch this is beyond me, but to make it worse it's hosted by the retard pandering king himself, the excreable Noel Edmonds. I can't watch him without the hair on the back of my neck standing up. So smug, so slimy and insincere.

This is THE worst thing on TV, bar none.

There is absolutely no skill in this "gameshow" at all - it is pure luck. Having said that, it is incredibly addictive. Noel Edmonds, finally back on TV after years in the wilderness, hosts this UK version of a game-show that I think originated in Australia, before being sold all over the globe. Channel Four and Endomol (the people behind "Big Brother") bought the concept for the UK market and are showing it some six times a week in the afternoon slot at 4.15pm after the ever-popular "Countdown" show.

The idea is quite simple - 22 numbered boxes (each with a different sum of money ranging from just 1p up to £250,000) and 22 contestants. For each show, one of the contestants is picked at random and comes to the table with his or her box and then has to choose which boxes to open in order, hopefully leaving themselves with the box or boxes that have the most money in right to the end. At set points during the game after opening a certain amount of boxes, the phone rings and Noel talks to the mysterious "banker" (a person whose secret identity is second only to "The Stig" from BBC's "Top Gear" motoring magazine show) and tries to tempt the player to sell their box to him - the question being "Deal" or "No Deal".

As I said before, this is pure luck. Sure, you can try to pick numbers based on birthdays or use odd and even numbers or even try to make a spreadsheet based upon all the shows so far, but ultimately the process is completely random. The only skill involved is taking the money that is offered at the right time and maximising your winnings. No-one has yet won the biggest sum possible - a cool quarter of a million, though there has been one poor guy who walked away with just a penny and another 10p winner, so the key factor is not to be TOO greedy - just do well enough to get a sum of money you are happy with and walk away. It will take a very brave person indeed faced with a choice at the last box to decide whether to accept an offer of £120,000 from the banker or open his box which MIGHT have £250,000 in it, but equally might have only £50. Do you take the £120,000 you've been offered and be grateful, or do you go for the big one and come away with something much smaller? I'd love to go on this show, but after watching so many games unfold I'm still not sure whether I'm a real gambler or a bottler. As soon as I was offered £10K or more, I'd probably walk, even if I had the best game-board possible. Maybe I'd feel differently if I was up there. Somehow, I doubt it. I'm not that greedy - £10K is plenty. I'd love to get on this show!!

When 'Deal on no deal' was first mentioned in the National press before it started in 2005, they were very sceptical as was I, about how a 45 minute show, with just a contestant picking red boxes at random would be much of a hit, but here we are close to 4 years later, the show which stated in the Netherlands is now practically everywhere in the world very much like BBC's The Weakest Link,

There is no skill to this game - and I wish Noel Edmonds would stop banging on about....'How well you're playing the game' & 'psychological game of cat and mouse with the banker'

IT'S PICKING BOXES FOR PETE'S SAKE!!!

But I have to say I, like many others am addicted

This pointless rubbish just involves random opening of boxes - there's no skill involved. When I watched the first episode, I was expecting that they'd move onto something better in later rounds, but it was the same boring thing throughout the show. I've never watched another episode.