This Weekend’s Intense Dutch “Deal or No Deal”: What Would You Do?
If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you know the Dutch Deal or No Deal hypothetical we gave out. For those who haven’t seen when we’ve shown off their version, called Miljoenenjacht, it’s to me the absolute perfect game show. You will have trouble convincing me that there’s a better game show out there, let alone a better version of Deal. A 500 person audience is brought to one by some various trivia rounds. That person gets to play the famous briefcase game, treated more like a bonus round and sans Banker, for five million euro. They don’t get sappy or emotional. They don’t make players feel like crap with prove-outs. It’s treated like what it is, a bonus round, and it’s just simply the best version of the show. Very few have come remotely close. It’s amazing how America took such an amazing game like Miljoenenjacht and turned it into ponies and dunk tanks.
Here’s a clip of this weekend’s unbelievably intense Miljoenenjacht. How would you have played it? Only one person has ever held the five million euro case, and only two people have ever been million euro winners. Can she do it? Take a look. What do you think? If NBC does end up bringing the show back they should be forced to watch every episode of this version, look how extremely popular it is, and emulate it as well as they can. This is exactly how a primetime edition of Deal should be: a giant money event program. Linda DeMol is a dream host as well. She’s exciting, fun, emotional, and of course extremely hot.
No spoiler here… just wow. You don't have to understand Dutch to understand what's going on.
And you're right, this is the tone that Deal should take if it comes back… lose the sideshow nonsense and make the game the star. I'd love to see them bring in the case-guess bonus as well… spread the wealth, as it were… even if it meant that we didn't get 26 pieces of eye candy. :)
No spoiler here… just wow. You don't have to understand Dutch to understand what's going on.
And you're right, this is the tone that Deal should take if it comes back… lose the sideshow nonsense and make the game the star. I'd love to see them bring in the case-guess bonus as well… spread the wealth, as it were… even if it meant that we didn't get 26 pieces of eye candy. :)
You still get the 26 pieces of eye candy. They introduce the cases at the start of the show, then hand them off to the contestants. Then there was the short-lived Vas o No Vas on Telemundo. Apparently one of the things necessary when converting a show to a Hispanic format is to add more hot babes. Never mind that the show had 26 of them to begin with. Instead of the Banker character on the US show, the Banker's lovely female assistant brought the offer out in cash. There was also La Tentación, who would try to tempt people out of going to the main round with a car or other nice prize. After La Tentación was done with her bit role, she sat next to the contestant's supporters to provide eye candy for the rest of the show.
You still get the 26 pieces of eye candy. They introduce the cases at the start of the show, then hand them off to the contestants. Then there was the short-lived Vas o No Vas on Telemundo. Apparently one of the things necessary when converting a show to a Hispanic format is to add more hot babes. Never mind that the show had 26 of them to begin with. Instead of the Banker character on the US show, the Banker's lovely female assistant brought the offer out in cash. There was also La Tentación, who would try to tempt people out of going to the main round with a car or other nice prize. After La Tentación was done with her bit role, she sat next to the contestant's supporters to provide eye candy for the rest of the show.
RTL, for those of you not familiar, is the parent company of FremantleMedia. Having a big general-knowledge quiz is something I believe they needed in the first place. Maybe start out with the 26 contestants, make them answer a series of questions ("fastest finger") style, in an F1-style knockout format. (In Formula One, knockout format is the 24 cars take time for 15 minutes, eliminate the bottom six, then another 15 minute session, eliminate the bottom six, and the top ten cars have a 15 minute session to determine who wins pole.)
Round One:
26 players, three questions in this round. Top ten players advance.
Round Two:
10 players, four questions in this round. Top three players in this round advance.
Round Three:
Three players, General knowledge buzz-in round. First player to get three questions correct plays the game.
NBC didn't play the format correctly if you asked me. All of the features of DOND were never used (case guesses, et al) and you're right. Having 26 civilians answer general knowledge questions on their podiums — the podiums could also be used for the case prediction game, as they would "lock in" their guesses on the same podiums. The three players who advance to the final stage of knockout qualifying would come to centre stage to play their buzzer game.
RTL, for those of you not familiar, is the parent company of FremantleMedia. Having a big general-knowledge quiz is something I believe they needed in the first place. Maybe start out with the 26 contestants, make them answer a series of questions ("fastest finger") style, in an F1-style knockout format. (In Formula One, knockout format is the 24 cars take time for 15 minutes, eliminate the bottom six, then another 15 minute session, eliminate the bottom six, and the top ten cars have a 15 minute session to determine who wins pole.)
Round One:
26 players, three questions in this round. Top ten players advance.
Round Two:
10 players, four questions in this round. Top three players in this round advance.
Round Three:
Three players, General knowledge buzz-in round. First player to get three questions correct plays the game.
NBC didn't play the format correctly if you asked me. All of the features of DOND were never used (case guesses, et al) and you're right. Having 26 civilians answer general knowledge questions on their podiums — the podiums could also be used for the case prediction game, as they would "lock in" their guesses on the same podiums. The three players who advance to the final stage of knockout qualifying would come to centre stage to play their buzzer game.
…An audience of 500, and they're still not as loud as ours. That's one thing we can work on.
…An audience of 500, and they're still not as loud as ours. That's one thing we can work on.
In earlier seasons of the show, the entire final winning sub-block of 25 (plus one randomly chosen 26th contestant) competed against each other in a multiple-choice keypad quiz, with each contestant getting points for right answers at the rate of 1pt for each contestant who got it wrong, if memory serves. Top two went through to the final faceoff on the buzzer.
Nowadays only six partake in the final round (how these six are selected has changed in the last couple of runs, but it's a mixture of random choices and the top players in the winning block by (presumably) correct answers and then speed) and after several rule changes, the pattern now is for contestants to guess how many of the other audience members said 'yes' to a particular question about themselves, vaguely Power of 10-ish. Contestant furthest away from the right answer gets eliminated each round until the final two, which now has a bailout round reminiscent of How Much Is Enough only better – a money clock counts up erratically from €1k to an unknown point, press the button and you win that amount of money but gift the other contestant their shot at the bonus round.
The quiz rounds has almost enough material for an hour of US television all on its own…
Er, *have* enough material. Was changing the sentence and didn't complete the changes…
It doesn't help that they've just missed out on their own shot at €5m. ;)
They're actually quiet as mice during the first 2-3 rounds, unless there's a correct guess or a seven-figure amount goes. I'm not even joking.
It doesn't help that they've just missed out on their own shot at €5m. ;)
They're actually quiet as mice during the first 2-3 rounds, unless there's a correct guess or a seven-figure amount goes. I'm not even joking.
In earlier seasons of the show, the entire final winning sub-block of 25 (plus one randomly chosen 26th contestant) competed against each other in a multiple-choice keypad quiz, with each contestant getting points for right answers at the rate of 1pt for each contestant who got it wrong, if memory serves. Top two went through to the final faceoff on the buzzer.
Nowadays only six partake in the final round (how these six are selected has changed in the last couple of runs, but it's a mixture of random choices and the top players in the winning block by (presumably) correct answers and then speed) and after several rule changes, the pattern now is for contestants to guess how many of the other audience members said 'yes' to a particular question about themselves, vaguely Power of 10-ish. Contestant furthest away from the right answer gets eliminated each round until the final two, which now has a bailout round reminiscent of How Much Is Enough only better – a money clock counts up erratically from €1k to an unknown point, press the button and you win that amount of money but gift the other contestant their shot at the bonus round.
The quiz rounds has almost enough material for an hour of US television all on its own…
In earlier seasons of the show, the entire final winning sub-block of 25 (plus one randomly chosen 26th contestant) competed against each other in a multiple-choice keypad quiz, with each contestant getting points for right answers at the rate of 1pt for each contestant who got it wrong, if memory serves. Top two went through to the final faceoff on the buzzer.
Nowadays only six partake in the final round (how these six are selected has changed in the last couple of runs, but it's a mixture of random choices and the top players in the winning block by (presumably) correct answers and then speed) and after several rule changes, the pattern now is for contestants to guess how many of the other audience members said 'yes' to a particular question about themselves, vaguely Power of 10-ish. Contestant furthest away from the right answer gets eliminated each round until the final two, which now has a bailout round reminiscent of How Much Is Enough only better – a money clock counts up erratically from €1k to an unknown point, press the button and you win that amount of money but gift the other contestant their shot at the bonus round.
The quiz rounds has almost enough material for an hour of US television all on its own…
Er, *have* enough material. Was changing the sentence and didn't complete the changes…
Er, *have* enough material. Was changing the sentence and didn't complete the changes…
Wow. Just wow.
Every time I read about a foreign Deal or No Deal I think about what might have been had our greedy producers been able to restrain themselves from milking the cow dry and overexposing this once ratings gem. It’s very sad considering this is not the first game show to meet this fate.