A letter to Endemol

Dear Endemol,

There is something very special about Deal or no Deal, its a game show like no other and in the UK it has its own very special flavour. The studio is a converted paint factory, if you had put sawdust on the floor it would have been slightly less basic. The format is even simpler; a player has to decide whether to take the offer or open a box.

So why is this show so popular?

It is the association we, the audience, make with the player. The person sitting in the chair has to make a decision, and by the game's mid-point we are there too, weighing up all that has gone before, all the baggage that the player has taken to the desk with them - their children, their income, their ambitions - and we try to determine whether, given the same circumstances, we would deal or not. We subconsciously rate courage and cowardice according to this measure - Morris and Trevor were supremely brave, Michael and Flash were found wanting.

We are British not American, we do not hanker after glitzy studios, artificial whooping, gorgeous leggy models with cases (we have Sarah, Emma B, Emma D, Terri, Lucy, Saj....), and a plastic host, we simply want real people we can empathise with to go through a journey that we can feel. And most of the time you do exactly that!

But Saturday's show was a disaster. If what we saw was Maxine being normal then she only has herself to blame for coming across as a rude, bullying, self-obsessed shrew, but perhaps contestants are now being encouraged to go over the top by production crew trying to 'keep the show fresh'?

And the Banker's recent habit of 'making things personal' with some contestants for no apparent reason, seems to be another attempt to increase tension in the show - but it is having the opposite affect.

Please, if the production crew are becoming bored by rolling out three shows per day, then rotate the crew more often, or move to live format which, among a heap of other advantages, would keep everybody on their toes. Whatever you do, I beg you please do not change the show's original (for the UK) format, you got it right the first time.

And finally on the point of Maxine, I am not sure what you could do if this really was Maxine being Maxine especially if it was a live show, but as you currently record it, perhaps you could have stopped the game after the first few minutes and had a word with her, for her own sake.

PS to our readers - if you agree with the above please make a comment as Endemol do read this blog, and hey, if you don't agree then please comment too.