20Oct2010
The British are Better Than Us: Tense “Deal or No Deal” Ending
It’s been discussed often how and why the British version of Deal or No Deal trumps the American version in practically every way, shape, and form. We haven’t featured it in a while and I’ve been looking at some recent episodes and found a great one. Our contestant turned down an offer of £24,000 and after her most recent round she was left with a board containing 1p, £5, £250, £75,000, and £250,000. What will her next offer be and, better yet, can she go all the way to a massive payday? Or will she be the newest 1p winner? Check out the video. It’s incredibly exciting and tense.
Best episode i have ever scene of the UK Deal or no Deal if we could find a host like him it would make a real surge of a comeback their were so many problems when the show went to half hour format here in the US but after seeing this clip now it reminds me why i love game shows in the first place and why i want to be a host
They’ve had THIRTY-THREE 1p winners?! Oh wow.
That was really intense. Imagine if the offer in the book was any higher. Would have thrown the entire game off. (Or, jokingly he writes 250,000 or maybe even more in the book if he somehow saw the twist coming.)
What the hell?! Why is she celebrating when she only won 1p? It’s just like when those guys on Bumper Stumpers celebrated after solving NO stumpers correctly in the bonus round…
She actually won 88,000 pounds, and successfully avoided winning 1p.
She won £88,000. She’s celebrating the fact that she took the deal at the right time. Unless I’m misinterpreting sarcasm, in which feel free to ignore this.
Oh, OK.
Part of me feels really queasy about the way she speaks about £29,000 (which for US readers is about $50k, and UK prizes are tax-free, so it’s like a $75k+ win on a US show) not being enough for things she ‘needs’, apparently.
Now, granted, £29k barely gets you a deposit on a house in large parts of the UK; the housing bubble has reinflated, and prices are generally higher due to tighter planning regulations and a high population density. But I digress. I thought that sense of entitlement was mostly seen in the US circa 2005.
When she then spoke at the end about how her attitudes had changed so much over the time on the show, I immediately wondered if she had been led astray and never intended to be this aggressive, or to have this sense of entitlement… the fact that she openly referenced one of the biggest and most lauded risk-takers in the show’s history so often made me think that even more…
…but in isolation, goodness me it was compelling television. Excellent twist at the 5-box offer, too.
David, making lots of noise about being a gambler, being brave, taking risks etc. is the way to get our Banker to open the chequebook. People who show weakness and wobble as soon as five-figure sums get bandied about tend to get deflated offers.
At the moment, £29,000 is only just enough to get the average UK graduate out of debt, and is around 1.5 years of the average worker’s salary. Most people would be very happy with that kind of payday, but with two much larger figures still on the board, a significant proportion (though probably a minority) of players would also be tempted to carry on.