Deal or No Deal Island is an American reality competition series which premiered on NBC on February 26, 2024.
A spin-off of the game show Deal or No Deal, the series features contestants competing in physical challenges in an island setting to retrieve briefcases containing cash values. The winner of the challenge selects a contestant to play the "Banker's Challenge"—a game of Deal or No Deal where they must aim to make a "good" offer on their chosen briefcase to avoid elimination. The last contestant remaining plays a high-stakes game of Deal or No Deal, with the largest prize being a jackpot formed from the total value of the offers received throughout the season.
Format
Deal or No Deal Island is a reality game show in which a group of contestants compete in excursions to collect briefcases hidden across the Banker's private island, an undisclosed island in the Panama islands.[1]
Excursions
Each episode, the contestants compete in Excursions and must undertake physical challenges to retrieve briefcases with varying cash values. Certain challenges may include "red cases," which either permit a contestant to seize another player’s briefcase[2] or contain a minimal cash amount.[3] Contestants securing the lowest-valued briefcases are deemed at risk and may be selected to face the Banker's Challenge. The contestant or team gathering the highest combined case value gains immunity for that evening and determines which lower-ranking contestant will confront the Banker.[4]
Banker's Challenge
The Banker's Challenge is a conventional high-stakes game of Deal or No Deal between the Banker and the player chosen to compete by the winner of the Excursion. The player goes head to head in a series of rounds, each round opening one or more cases and revealing their values. At the end of each round, the Banker presents the player with an offer. The player must decide whether to accept the Banker's offer or keep their case. If the player accepts an offer worth more than what's in their case, they are safe and must eliminate one of their fellow contestants. If they accept an offer worth less than their case value, they are eliminated. At the end of the Banker's Challenge, the value of the accepted deal or contestant's case (if final deal is rejected) is added to the total final case value.[4] During the Banker's Challenge, if the player gets a record breaking offer from the Banker, he may choose to sweeten the deal by offering the player a personal deal, typically a cash prize that the player will receive regardless of the outcome of the game.[5] In some cases, if the player accepts the deal, they must agree to leave the game immediately.[6]
Final game
In the end, the final few contestants compete in a series of challenges to determine the winner who earns the right to play a conventional game of Deal or No Deal with 22 cases to determine their prize. However, this game is played with the Banker (now revealed to be Howie Mandel, the original host of Deal or No Deal) present in person. The top half of the board consists entirely of cases containing $1 million or more, including the largest cases found during each Excursion. The highest valued case was the total amount won in each of the previous Banker's Challenges, which in season 1 resulted in a top case valued at nearly $14,000,000.[4]
Production
On May 12, 2023, NBC ordered the series.[7][8][9][10][11] On September 27, 2023, it was announced that Joe Manganiello would host the show.[12][13] On November 20, 2023, it was announced that the series will premiere on February 20, 2024.[14][15] On January 8, 2024, the contestants were announced.[16] On May 7, 2024, the series was renewed for a second season.[17]
In the first season finale, Howie Mandel appeared as the Banker.
Season 1
Contestants
The cast of 13 contestants includes familiar faces such as reality TV personality and former Deal or No Deal case model Claudia Jordan and former five-time Survivor contestant and two-time The Amazing Race contestant Rob Mariano.[18]
^In the Banker's game, Dawson accepted an offer of $1,399,000 for the final case in addition to a $100,000 personal offer as a bribe to immediately leave the game. Even if the personal offer had not been made, Dawson would have been eliminated regardless, as the Banker's offer was ultimately a bad deal.[6]
^Episode 6 was a non-elimination episode due to a special case retrieved by Amy during the Excursion and opened by Aron at the Banker's Challenge.[34]
^Episode 11 ended on a cliffhanger without revealing the two contestants eliminated during that episode's sudden death challenge.[35]
^As the last contestant left standing, Jordan played a standard Deal or No Deal game with 22 cases, with 11 of these cases worth $1 million or more–the values of which were determined by the top case obtained at each excursion throughout the season, and the top case being the final case value, worth $13,857,000. She accepted one of the Banker's offers and won $1,230,000, and was a good deal with her case worth $1,000.[19]
^In the Banker's game, Dawson accepted an offer of $1,399,000 for the final case in addition to a $100,000 personal offer as a bribe to immediately leave the game. Even if the personal offer had not been made, Dawson would have been eliminated regardless, as the Banker's offer was ultimately a bad deal.[6]
^In the Banker's game, Miranda accepted an offer of $937,000 for the final case in addition to a personal offer of $40,000, which was hers to keep no matter the outcome. As Miranda's case contained the $1,500,000 value, her offer was a Bad Deal and Miranda was eliminated.[5]
Cheating
In the first part of the two-part finale of Season 1, Episode 11 (S1E11[35]), the final four contestants were challenged to navigate through the Banker's Garden, a jungle maze, to locate and retrieve briefcases of undisclosed value. The task commenced with a riddle-solving challenge that would grant access to a map pinpointing the briefcases' locations. Amy solved the riddle first and entered the maze. Subsequently, Rob violated the game's rules by looking at Amy's game board for the riddle's solution. This infraction prompted an immediate intervention by host Joe Manganiello, who paused the game to address the breach. Despite the violation, Rob was permitted to continue participating in the challenge but was assessed a time penalty determined by the duration of time between Amy and the next finisher entering the maze, which was ultimately three minutes. This penalty required him to wait until all other contestants had started their maze excursions before his penalty timer commenced.[36]
Writing for The Daily Beast, Fletcher Peters argued that Deal or No Deal Island was a "dreamlike, messy, absurdist concept" that sounded like a "title ripped from 30 Rock", and that she would have preferred another straight reboot of the original show, but that it was a "welcome twist on the original romp" and was "easy" to watch.[38]
Andy Dehnart was more critical, considering it "an awkward marriage of two different formats" that "tip[ped] way too much toward Deal or No Deal for my taste", panning the length of the Banker's Challenge segments (albeit admitting that he was not as much of a fan of Deal or No Deal to begin with due to its pacing), and the quality of its editing.[39]
