Deal or No Deal

Perhaps recovering the intense feeling of excitement and suspense of Who Wants to be a Millionare, Deal or No Deal is easily the best gameshow currently on TV.

Made by Endemol who are responsible for a hell of a lot of programmes including Big Brother, Deal or No Deal gives you 45 minutes of entertainment in a way that most other gameshows fail to deliver upon. One of the main reasons for this I feel is that even if the contestant doesn't win a large amount of money, the suspense is still maintained simply because all is usually not lost.

For those that don't know about Deal or No Deal, read up about it here. This post isn't to detail what the show is about, only to express my love of it. My only quarrel is that unfortunately, due to it being a relatively new show in the UK, Channel Four haven't gone all out on the set budget or titles which gives an excellent game a slightly tacky look. In addition, now that it's getting extremely popular, many people feel that a move from 4:10pm to a prime time slot each night would suit the programme perfectly. Currently, it's beating the likes of The Weakest Link over on BBC2.

It's great to see that the gameshow format is capable of constantly reinventing itself and Deal or No Deal has come at just the right time, since Millionaire is now completely void of any real excitement due to the fact that it's been going for quite a number of years now. The popularity has been declining for a while too, as proven by the fact that it's now shown only once per week instead of every night for two weeks as it was when it first started. Deal or No Deal is currently running six days a week and I can see it going at that pace for quite some time as the ratings keep on getting higher as more people find out about the show.