Take it or leave it

Once upon a time I played white elephant with my wife's church choir. Can't remember what prize I ended up with. Which probably means it wasn't worth much.

So Howie Mandel's new game show Take It All seemed vaguely familiar to me. Five contestants played three rounds of white elephant. They either kept a prize from the show or tried to take a prize away from another contestant. At the end of each round the player with the cheapest prize went home with nothing.

This part of the game had a The Price is Right-ish feel, as our heroes had to figure out if their prizes were expensive enough to get them to the next round. We got hit with bouts of screaming and crying as Howie revealed the prize values at the end of each round. Wouldn't you know, one particularly weepy contestant really got on my nerves. Of course, she was one of the two players who survived to the endgame.

That endgame didn't have anything to do with white elephant. Instead, the two remaining contestants faced off in a Friend or Foe-like prisoner's dilemma round. They tried to talk each other into being friendly and sweet and not trying to hog all the prizes. And again, wouldn't you know, the contestant who got on my nerves played screw-thy-neighbor, locked in the "take it all" choice, and walked off with all the loot. Because the other guy played nice with the "keep mine" choice.

The poor guy who got screwed looked like Santa Claus, by the way. No ho-ho-ho for you, pal. Take It All was loud and almost brainless, but it passed the time well enough. Howie seemed to be enjoying himself, anyway. And although I didn't like the lie-fest in the prisoner's dilemma round, I have to admit that it produced some genuine suspense.

UPDATE: Take It All does okay but not spectacular numbers. A 2.2 18-49 rating with 7.1 million total viewers. Second in the timeslot in both measures behind 2 Broke Girls.