Deal Or No Deal.

I hope this series of 'Deal Or No Deal' is shorter than the last one.

When Deal Or No Deal started, I found it really interesting. I really liked watching the way people dealt with odds and how they decided to play them. It used to come across as a form of extreme gambling at times, as people were faced with cold, hard decisions they didn't know how to make.

Then somewhere along the line, a dirty word started to become involed.

"Destiny."

Suddenly, the numbers had meaning. Personal association came into play. The programme became less about a person's decision making process and more about personal spiritual journeys.

Then it got really creepy. It started turning into a televised cult where everyone would hold hands and try to send positive energy into an almost empty box.

Luckily, before the series got into everyone drinking poisoned kool-aid or going on a murderous rampage, someone saw sense and decided the series must have a little break. Put Noel Edmonds in an ice bath before he exploded and let every one of his disciples some time to calm down.

Now it's back, and while it's certainly better for having had it's cooling off period (on a serious note, during one of the episodes where they were doing the 'everyone hold hands and send out positive energy' thing, I actually thought they were going to start chanting), it still seems to have calmed down. Noel still works them up a treat tho, to the point where they permanently look on the verge of breaking point, even when they're doing well. There are still some of the spiritual tell tale signs though. A little bit too much about instinct and 'believing in yourself.'

And this time, it's like that from the off. By the end of this series, I wouldn't be surprised to see them all attempting levitation, or trying to determine what was in all the boxes thru some sort of collective conciousness or an attempt to dematerialise into a form of cloud in which everything reverts to the same base molecules and then reforms so that every box has £250,000 and everyone wins everytime and live happily ever after as the same collective being.

And Noel Edmonds would be the conductor of this orchestra of amalgamated beings. And they would probably take over all of us, whether we wanted them to or not.

And that's why I hope this series of 'Deal Or No Deal' is shorter than the last one was.