Deal or No Deal (USA)/Episode 401

Episode 401

Season 4, Episode 1
Airdate	August 25, 2008
← 3x67 Episode 369	4x02 → Episode 402
Deal or No Deal (USA) — Season Four

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Episode 401 is the premiere episode of the fourth season of Deal or No Deal, and the one hundred seventy-sixth episode overall.

Guest Stars: Aretha Franklin, Bob Harper, Jillian Michaels, Bernie Telsey

Gameplay

To begin Season 4, appropriately enough, Million Dollar Mission play returned with four $1,000,000 cases in the game. Koshka Blackburn from Maryland, unhappy at her overly conservative predecessors on this show, received this news when she was asked to sing "adapted lyrics" to demonstrate her formidable pipes that she hoped to take all the way to Broadway.

Having traded off between a good first round and a rather bad second round, after the third round was complete, two million dollar cases remained, and Koshka was offered $95,000 plus a personal session with Bob and Jillian from The Biggest Loser, along with full member benefits, a library of books and DVDs, and a year's worth of the plan. Although she felt she needed this to improve her weight (which she stated was the reason she had been turned down in the past), Koshka continued to play the game.

After Round 4, eight cases remained: a penny, $10, $300, $750, $5,000, $10,000, $200,000 and the last $1 million case. The immediate offer was $66,000, but underlying that was a meeting with Bernie Telsey in New York, a private audition for a Broadway musical, and a walk-on role in Hairspray - but only if Koshka turned down every single offer. Fueled by this, Koshka and her team of supporters took an epic run through danger, continuing even without the $200,000 backup, past $170,000 and $286,000, to reach the last two cases of $5,000 and $1,000,000 intact.

The banker's final hurrah was to throw out $530,000, and at this, her bench completely reversed their attitude, believing that this would be enough for her dream regardless. Torn between her hope of winning a million dollars and/or the Broadway musical and her other dream of at least $500,000 answered, Koshka finally decided to take the ultimate plunge, knowing that she had some insurance behind her and hoping to end the unfortunate legacy of the 18 could-have-beens before her.

Unfortunately, Koshka ended up with the $5,000 case after refusing to swap, but even in the face of what would normally cause a breakdown, she put her trust in the upcoming Broadway audition and the Hairspray role - which even $525,000 cannot purchase. And it could, in the end, be money well sacrificed if she turns this into a career. As of this writing, it is unknown what happened after the show, and all DonD fans hope she does well and turns the molehill into a mountain.

This marks the first occasion anyone has gone directly for the top prize, though not the first time done when there was a million at stake, or when the million could be won by default due to $1M cases being the entire board.

Season 4 Changes:

Howie entered through the board itself, as the curtain retracted to allow him through.
The banker's box is redesigned and now fully visible by the contestant, similar to the Philippine version's office.
Model changes: Mariela Arteaga replaces Stacey at case 2, Amanza Smith replaces Lauren at case 8 while the latter moves to Jill's former case (12), and Mylinda is replaced at case 19 by Heidi Lish. These changes may not be permanent, as they are not officially locked into place by the DonD staff.
For this episode only, as of now, the editing has been massively improved, with little extraneous and dragging talk that has always turned off viewers of the show. This may have been simply to fit the entire episode into one hour, but with the current critical praise for this development, it may be continued in future shows.
With the illegal-gambling lawsuit dismissed, the Lucky Case Game returns, this time under the name "Beat the Banker", where the player tries to find which of the cases the $10,000 prize was hidden in by the Banker.