Deal Or No Deal - I just had to create this blog

Aim: somewhere for people who want to write about TV's Deal Or No Deal.

Monday to Saturday, 4.15 to 5.00 pm is blocked off; if you are talking I'm not listening, if you get between me and the telly then you are in danger. But I am not a frustrated housewife watching my favourite soap, I am not a couch potato, not even a TV addict...I just love Deal Or No Deal.

I didn't want to love it, who needs another game show? When I first had it running in the background it was because I hadn't switched over after Countdown; I often work from home and the TV is normally just background noise. It really annoyed me that there were all these people in the audience becoming hysterical, obviously pumped up by the warm-up guy before the programme started. And Noel Edmonds was back on telly, images of Mr Blobby came rushing back - I thought 'NO, not having this, where is the remote'. I did in fact find the remote, but by then I was intrigued as to why the contestants clapped everytime one of them opened a box. I remember that the guy picking the boxes that first day was a window cleaner, a mix between Sean Bean and Arthur Daley; someone offered him £54,000 and he said 'deal'. Why did that happen? Of course I soon worked out what the rules were, and that apart from the contestants and Noel, there was this shadowy figure called the 'banker'.

I soon realised that the audience don't need a warm-up man, and hey this is Noel back to his very best. I can't imagine anyone else doing the job half as well, every word is off the cuff, he plays to the camera like Joel Gray's Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret, and he is sincere. Noel is a true master of his craft.

Now if you have watched the program and you are reading this, you will know that it doesn't take long to learn the rules, the concept is beautifully simple. But this is not a game show, this is a journey I take every weekday: we all assemble at the quay-side just after 4.15 where Noel tells us who is going to be today's captain, and then we are off. On reflection captain is the wrong term, he/she is our champion, about to do battle.

It was not long before I realised that it was the people, particularly the one in the chair, that made this program very different from the ordinary. These people have the opportunity to realise life changing amounts of money, and the ability to throw it all away again. As we watch they try to cope mentally with enormous amounts of money being pulled from their grasp, and yet there is even more to this. The contestants are known to each other, they have grown close through living in each others pockets for weeks at a time. When deciding to deal or not deal, they might think about what the money will buy, they might consider what they can afford to gamble, but above all they will be looking into the eyes of their fellow contestants for their blessing.

And then there are the decisions. Every now and again the fates contrive to produce momentous decisions like the one on Wednesday where the banker had offered £24,000 with 4 blues and £250,000 still on the board. Trevor looked at it and said 'you make your own luck', then with glazed eyes, he took a deep breath and said 'No Deal'. The crowd went wild, I went wild, the decision was truly brave. Would I have done it? I would like to say yes, but I wasn't sitting in that chair, and I wasn't about to take £24,000 of my own money and bet it on a four in five chance of losing it all. [My money? Well yes. The way I look at it the banker gives you an amount of money each time he phones, and then you either walk away or gamble it all on the next round.] So Trevor went on. If he got to the next round with £250k untouched the banker would offer over £100k - this was massive. Box 1 of 3 was blue, the crowd were cheering, the next break point was drawing nearer. Box 2 was blue, the audience were going mad, at home I wase watching from the edge of my seat, could we be about to see someone offered £100k, and what would he do then? Box 3, the last box of the round, the final barrier between Trevor and a completely different life...it was red, it was the £250k. It was like the scene from Deerhunter where Jon Voigt loses his game of Russian roulette. Trevor was left with a choice between 1p and £100 but it didn't matter, and it didn't matter that he eventually left with 1p - he was already dead, and so was everyone watching. The thing is, you just can't watch this from the sidelines.

If you have read this and think, 'yes I love it too', then please add to this blog, and if you want to know about the number theory behind the game then check out DOND Theory which has some interesting stuff on this area.