TVSquad

What the...? Deal or No Deal has 200 episodes under its belt? It seems like only two years, 10 months and 46 days since the show premiered on NBC. Never in the history of game shows has a simple concept like that of Deal been stretched and bent in order to keep the format fresh. There were two-hour episodes, audience participation episodes, episodes that focused around the contestant. and episodes featuring naked briefcase models. All right, the last one is a fantasy of mine. However, should the executives at Endemol be listening...

For the 200th episode, which preempts Chuck tonight at 8 p.m., Deal will be offering another variation of the game. Four lucky contestants will get the chance to take the Banker's challenge or find the million dollar briefcase in a series of speed rounds. Normally, contestants have a pretty big window to determine if they want to take the offer from the Banker -- the whole concept of the game. This episode they will only have a mere 20 seconds to make the decision.

On a side bet, if all four players win a combined total of one million bucks the Banker will have to dive into a giant cake. If they win less, then host Howie Mandel will need to dive in the cake. Which should be interesting, considering his OCD and all.

What I don't understand is why the 20-second decision rule shouldn't be in affect at all times. Or, if not 20 seconds, then maybe a minute. I've always found the length of time that it takes for contestants to make decisions on shows like Deal reduces the amount of drama and drags out the action. Now, this is coming from someone who has never been in that type of situation before and I could just be talking out of my rear end. And yet, should this work out, one can hope that they start putting some form of time limit on these decisions.