Deal or No Deal Island

Caught the first episode of season 2025. I never saw any of the previous seasons and I hesitated, but ultimately decided to give it a try on a night there wasn't much on. I would have given it at least 6 stars since the show held my interest quickly, but I began to notice as the episode progressed it was continuously interrupted with an astounding amount of commercials. I will not watch the rest of the season. Not having Peacock it became unwatchable due to the unbelievable amount of commercials. I was quite surprised for a network produced show which became very similar to cable shows where there are 3 minutes of show, then 4 minutes of commercials. Hard to believe. Shameful. Life is too short.

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.

The Survivor stuff, splashing through mud, etc., I can live without. I've never watched Survivor, so the physical challenges do not appeal to me. When it comes to the actual case-choosing game, they have inverted the object of the game from what it was. Contestant is now building a team total, not playing for himself/herself. And, they have added a rule that the deal the Contestant ultimately takes must be a number higher than the (hidden) case he/she first chose, which means the winning strategy must be to eliminate all the high-amount cases. It turns Howie's studio game around backwards. Makes no sense.

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.

Season 2 is even more entertaining than the first. Was able to get right into the action especially with contestants like Parvati from survivor. She immediately starts working her magic which is hilarious - some people just have a natural gripping charisma. Without giving more away, there are a lot of other good personas matched throughout episode one. Am excited to see how the competition progresses as it seems they've shaken some things up from the first season. They are definitely trying find a groove for the show that really locks in as a calling card, and I don't think the briefcases are necessarily a part of that. I almost feel like the briefcases are a topping to a bigger picture and if they can make it work it can really help elevate the show to something of a classic.