Monday, December 10, 2012

NBC's Take It All gave me nothing

Look at that modified Deal or no Deal set! Hear that modified Deal or no Deal theme music! It must be NBC's latest December game show launch, the suggestively titled Take It All. Hosted by Dealmeister Howie Mandell, this riff on Dirty Santa grows tiresome by about the second time a contestant stares at the colored question marks and wrestles with the choice of green, blue or white in order to add another prize to the mix (such as, in tonight's first episode, a mechanical bull or 25 years of gym membership — woohoo). More offensive than the overwhelming inertia of this concept is the final face-off, in which the contestant may choose "keep mine" to walk away with his amassed prizes … but if one chooses "take it all" and the other player chooses "keep mine," the greedy bastard walks away with both fortunes. It's a complete ripoff of GSN's early 2000s Kennedy-hosted original Friend or Foe?, which was also mean-spirited but at least watchable.