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.

Believe it or not, The King of Queens aired its 200th episode last night. They didn't do anything special to celebrate it. No guest stars, no plot twists, no revelations; Kevin James and company just did the same thing they've been doing since 1998, which is put on a funny show that will never be compared to The Office, but it won't be compared to According to Jim, either.

The plots? Doug and Carrie wonder how Deacon and Kelly can afford a vacation home when they can't, and do their best to try to find out. Also, Arthur coaches Spence in the art of finding a new job, then swoops in and steals a position Spence was looking to get. Nothing different than we haven't seen before, and the humor was the same: some laugh-out-loud moments, a few chuckle-worthy moments, mostly generated by the actors' timing and skill rather than the script itself.