No Deal

I'm watching Deal or No Deal on NBC right now, a show I've hated from the beginning because it got picked up for another season at the exact time that The West Wing was canceled. The show features the simplest format I've ever encountered, even cheaper than Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Each contestant picks a briefcase from a selection of twenty five or so, and inside that briefcase is an amount of money, ranging from a single penney to a million dollars. The contestant then has to open the other briefcases to see which prizes he did not recieve. Along the way, a phantom banker offers the contestant a modest amount of money to stop playing, so about once every couple of minutes the contestant has to decided "deal or no deal."
It's compelling television, I'm not gonna lie. For a statistics geek like me, it's fun to calculate the expected value and see whether or not the contestant is making the right decision. And the pressure is incredible. The dude that was on tonight almost cried.
The banker's offers generally increase as time goes on, rewarding the contestants for sticking around and therfore creating a more exciting show. Tonight, our poor contestant decided to deal at the worst possible time, had he decided to quit one case earlier or later he would have gone away with almost $100,000 more. You really feel bad for the guy.
And then you think, "Wait, he just got $100,000 for standing on television. Who cares if his case held half a million? He's still going away $100,000 richer!" I'm actually a little mad; what other country in the world could make winning $100,000 a disappointment?
I wonder what our kids will think thirty years from now about what we thought was entertaining. I think they'll regard Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Deal or No Deal much as we regard the Gong Show and Laugh In: quaint and funny but indicative of some troubling cultural defect. And that's just the game shows; will future generations understand the ever-present reality tv craze? Do we even understand reality tv?
I remember being really disappointed with my mom when she got hooked on Survivor back in its first season. I thought she had sunk to the lowest depths of cultural gratification (I might have even used those words, though I was in sixth grade so I doubt I knew what they meant at the time.) She immersed herself in the show, its contestants, its rules, strategies and pitfalls, and before long she had me hooked too. So I worry that when my parents watch Deal or No Deal I might fall into the trap the way I fell into Survivor. What bothers me so much about the show? Is it because the particpants attitude toward the cash comes off as idol worship, or that Howie Mandel is so annoying? Is it something else? And then I marvel at my attitude toward the show; why does a person who likes South Park find shows like Deal or No Deal morally repugnant? How did I get so pompous, so self-righteous?
I am, by nature, a worrier, and there are so many conflicts flying around in my head right now that I have little time to muse on the cultural and spiritual significance of shows like Deal or No Deal. So I'll leave the thinking to you. Do you have any idea what bothers me so much about this? If you have any thoughts, do let me know; I could use a little resolution right now.