Rubbish Inventions of the Modern World: Deal or No Deal

Not so much an invention, more of a creation but rubbish none-the-less.







The current "daytime TV show of the year" in Britain happens to be the above titled programme, the very same game show that has relaunched the career of Noel Edmonds.

After Noel's House Party was axed by the BBC in 1999, Edmonds had found himself attending the local job club until last year.

After applying for the presenting role on Countdown, he was then snapped up by Channel Four to present a new game show called "Deal or No Deal."

The show involves 22 contestants, one of which is picked to play the game. Each contestant has a box with a cash value inside ranging from 1p to £250,000. The player then selects boxes at random to reveal a cash amount. That amount is then taken away. At various intervals, a "banker" makes an offer based on what cash values are left. The player then decides if they want to accept this offer or play on to earn a greater offer.

The problem is, it is perhaps the only TV gameshow I can remember where contestants have the opportunity of winning a live-changing sum on money through no skill whatsoever.

It's like Russian roulette except instead of a gun, you've got piles of cash. Any idiot can reel off random numbers and win big. This is made better by the fact that the contestants are usually whacko's and nut-jobs who believe that they have psychic abilities or that the £250,000 "has to be" in the box which happens to be their guinea pig's birthday or something equally stupid.

Why then, is the programme so successful? Well, it makes good TV. It creates suspense and is a typical example of 'car crash TV,' where a member of the public has their weaknesses exposed live on National television and if you want to look at it from a psychological perspective, it is a perfect demonstration of human greed.

Oh, and it's a daytime TV programme and so more than likely, the lack of any form of skill or intelligence involved in the game is perhaps an indication that Channel Four know their audience well.

Why am I saying this in my Christmas advice section? Well, C4 are cashing in big-time. It's that time of year when you get the various board game, DVD game, PC game, Playstation / Xbox game, handheld game, pen and paper game and so on.

Please, stop fuelling this endless production line of lazy TV.