SYNDICATED MILLIONAIRE & DEAL OR NO DEAL

[radiorama1]

Does anyone here watch the syndicated versions of these two game shows?

1) Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: Ok, I USED to like it up until this season. Now, they have implemented a clock, which ticks down and gives the contestant 15-30 seconds to answer, depending on which level they are at. If the contestant hasn't answered by the time the clock has ticked down to zero, they must walk away with what they have.

Now I understand that the objective here probably is to speed things up a bit, but IMO it speeds things up TOO much. Part of what made WWTBAM w/ Meredith great is the banter and rapore that she had with the contestants. But much of that is lost now, she doesn't really have the time to talk with them much and she now seems to be almost robotic at times. Too bad.

2) Deal or No Deal: This half hour version, to put it bluntly, SUCKS. First of all, there are no models (well, save two)... just 22 regular Joe-Schmo's who hold the cases up on the stage. At the beginning of the show two models from the regular hour version spin a whee, and the person holding the case with the number the ball lands on gets to come down and play the game. That contestant then has the option of keeping his/her case, or trading it with one of the "case-holders" cases.

The top prize is $500,000, NOT $1,000,000. Now, 500-thou is stil a HUGE amount of money, however once the contestant knocks out the $500,000 and the $250,000, it is pretty much a given that he/she will be walking out with far less. *yawn* ...

Also, as with the case with WWTBAM, this half hour version of DOND goes by too quickly, there is hardly no banter or jokes between Howie and the contestants... just the offer and a quick "Deal Or No Deal"... and I don't know if it is edited or not, but gone is the agonizing "should I take the deal or not", just a quick "NO DEAL"... and "we'll be back"... even when the "banker" "calls" with the offer, no more insults, just the offer.

IMO, what made the hour version of DOND so great was the contestants themselves, the stories they told... their background... and with some the unique walks of life they came from. This half hour installment just speeds through everything, there is no "breathing room" here, no time for a story to unfold, no drama, no build-up.

I give this half hour version of DOND a season, maybe two. Does anyone know if the hour version is still on as well (I don't get to watch much television anymore), or has it been taken off?

 

[YEKIMI]

Hour long DOND is still on. The reason they did the clock on WWTBAM is because last season one contestant took 53 MINUTES to choose an answer. Of course you never saw that as it had been edited down. If every contestant ended up taking that long the production company would go bankrupt, who could afford to pay all their workers for however long it took to choose any answer? I guess there nightmare version would be if one person took all that time to answer one question, they could be there for four days taping one person, even though they do tape 5 [or so] shows a day.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I think the hour long DOND moves too slowly and the banter is ridiculous. Haven't caught the half-hour version yet, but it sounds interesting.

 

[imhomerjay]

I've actually enjoyed Millionaire with the clock. It adds some pressure, and at times even the edited versions of agonizing over answers became tedious to me. I understand it's a radical shift, but I think the executed it well, even if I would have suggested going to :45 seconds after the $25,000 safe level. Seeing Double Dip come over from Super Millionaire is cool, and--let's be honest--50/50 had become kind of a joke over the years with the number of times it left the exact answers the contestant thought (random or not, the humor wore off). The new graphics look slick too.

As for Deal, I'm in the school of thought that the pacing is better this way. Besides becoming bored with a show that has zero skill/knowledge involved, the primetime version became "Queen for a Day" with bigger money. The corny stunts, the sob stories, the overly drawn out debtates over playing or quitting just to round out an hour is a bit much for my tastes. I was curious about the syndie version, and though I miss the models (#s 3, 4 and 26 in particular ), the idea of having the players hold the cases is an interesting twist.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Contestants are picked randomly and the other contestants open the cases in the British and Australian versions of DOND, possibly in other countries as well.