crewbie

Fairly cheesy, but a decent meal at that. At the opening scene, I was afraid this might be really bad. However, as it went on to the main characters and plot, the show very much improved. There were some shaky moments and story lines in the beginning, but pretty good characters and acting mostly redeemed it.

In the end, it was pretty absorbing and entertaining and could almost have been really good. It was let down by bad sci-fi and plot holes (the pitfall of many time-themed sci-fi entertainments) which were never addressed, as well as some very predictable reveals. The end got rather creepy, which kind of intrigued me for a second season. If I see it drop, I'll probably give it a go.

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.