8 p.m. Monday-Friday
NBC

At one point in the first episode of this game show from Endemol USA, host Howie Mandel tells the contestant, "This is not just a game of chance." He's wrong. It is entirely a game of chance. Unlike other game shows that, from time to time, impart information, albeit trivial, "Deal or No Deal" shows only how well contestants and their families can follow exhortations to show emotions.

Here's how it works: A contestant chooses one numbered metal case from 26 held by attractive models. Each case has a different amount of money, from 1 cent to $1 million. The contestant calls out the numbers of the other cases and, one by one, they are opened and their amounts revealed. From time to time, a "banker," seen only in shadows, makes an offer on the case originally chosen. At this point, Mandel, with all the suspense he can muster, asks, "Deal or no deal?" Initial amounts offered by the banker are low to keep the game going; later offers reflect the average of the amounts left in each case.

At the outset, we are told that the cases have been put in a high-security vault. At the end, an advisory confesses that the "high-security vault" was "scripted for dramatic purposes." End credits also reveal that "the banker" actually is the producers.

NBC has stripped the show at 8 p.m. this week, though watching it is not an improvement over reruns. That it has been a hit in 35 nations, as NBC claims in a press release, reveals that there are more international threats than terrorism and global warming.