Warning: Minor, tiny spoilers from December 10th’s Deal or No Deal ahead:

Confession time: I haven’t watched a single minute of Deal or No Deal this season at all.  I’ve just been bored sick with it.  Last season seemed to be a breaking point, where they just tried horrible gimmick after horrible gimmick.  It got frustrating, tiring, and nauseating.  Then we come to the new season and I hear of the Million Dollar Mission.  That put more dread, and with ratings really starting to sag I figured the primetime version was slowly coming to an end with the syndie version rolling around.  However, all of a sudden, out of no where, Endemol is getting back into the gear of things and making the show fresh, exciting, and fun.  Most noticeably, they had Winner Takes All last night.

If you didn’t watch it, you missed what was probably the best episodes of Deal or No Deal I’ve seen in the US and probably in my top five around the world.  The game, in short, is that three players played three separate games.  The person who left with the most money in their game took home everyone else’s money while the other two went home with nothing.  On paper this sounds good, but I had a horrible feeling that Endemol would do something stupid, like let the other contestants see what the previous ones got.  Look at what they did to 1 VS 100.

Wow was I wrong.  They did everything as perfectly as humanly possible.  All the players and family members were sequestered in different rooms in isolation the entire time they weren’t playing.  They either got a new audience or really coached the current one to play the game straight, because they did not do anything hinting at strategy.  Howie acted as neutral as he possibly could have, and was very convincing.  Even the Banker got into it!

The Banker is what made the episode for me.  For people watching it a lot, has the Banker been giving good offers recently?  For instance, when we were down to $50,000 and $300,000; I figured we’d be seeing $180,000 to $200,000 knowing our habits.  However, we only offered $146,000.  Fantastic and perfect.  We did this for the rest of the show too.  Why did it take them so long to realize that if you want a contestant to play a game to the end, you cannot offer a gigantic sum of money?  You have to offer a lesser amount that makes it tempting to go on.  The Banker was fair in offering tough dollar values to every contestant also.

Yeah, the winner didn’t leave with a ton of money, but who cares?  The entire episode was incredibly enjoyable and just about perfect.  They chose some fun contestants who were over-the-top but still lovable (at least in my eyes).  They finally got the offers to where they should be, and they played the competition factor perfectly.  I truly hope this was the beginning of many more Winner Takes All episodes.  The one reason I love the Dutch version of the show the best is because they have the massive audience competition to see who plays.  Adding some strategy to the briefcase game like they did today made it a whole new show.  It increases the possible top prize while not screwing with the board.  Now I just strongly hope they don’t revert back to old ways, but it amazes me that they are finally getting the picture with Deal or No Deal.  It only took them three years, but they finally found out what makes it work.  I’m hoping to tune in much much more, now, and see something as exciting, fun, and competitive as I did today.  What did you readers think of Winner Takes All?  Am I alone in sharing the feelings of this episode?