Agreed. 3 extra prizes in 13 games is just too much. Besides, some people are going to win a blue.

BANKER!!! STOP GIVING OUT BLOODY PRIZES, IT DEFEATS THE POINT OF THE GAME!!!

One of these days, the player selection machine has got to choose a player who has a high red

It's disgraceful

Plus the £1,000 given to Nikki, Bez, Emma, Carol, Tim and Mary, it's a joke.

I think we now know for sure that Endemol are trying too hard for happy games. Forcing players on with offers Beryl might reject, then giving out handouts when (because there's not much if about it right now) it goes wrong, is every bit as much an endorsement of gambling as the behaviour of the host eighteen months ago.

How bad can the show get?

Well i thought the role of the banker is to buy the box, is he trying to buy the box?? The offers were horrendus! Stuart did absalutely nothing wrong and yet again another blue is won! I wouldnt be soo frustrated if the offers were at least half decent!!

Hard Luck Stuart but at least you got the diamond ring out of it!

What an absolute farce. Why can't there just be some dealable offers instead of insulting ones then a handout at the end when a brave (or merely someone who recognises that the offers are a complete pile of horse manure) ends up winning the inevitable blue that's in their box?

That said, it wasn't any fault of Stuart at all, I liked his approach to the game and he deserved big money.

They can always put the blue games on the cutting room floor, pay them £1,000 but their show will never be aired. Exactly what Endemol USA/NBC have been doing.

Thank goodness for the show's people-on-the-wings principle then, as I'm sure that's all that's preventing that!

So that's 2 days in a row where the player could've got a nice OPW with a win in the high £20ks (or more) if the banker had played fairly and made decent offers on good boards. £12k on that 5-box board was pathetic, and £15k wasn't great either - it was rather worrying to see newbie Michelle saying that as Stuart had gambled already, he should consider dealing, and that £15k was a "superb" offer!! I can only assume contestants like that can't read the board very well and haven't watched the show when the banker was in one of his generous periods (e.g. early 2007), so are unaware of what should / could be offered.

Also it now means every player of Season 4 who's won a blue has been given some sort of handout - be it money for buying a mug, the money from Stacey-Anne's and Mary's games, or the extra £3k (?) Stuart received today to buy his wife a diamond ring. Not forgetting William who had a holiday to Jamaica thrown in at the end of Season 3 when he won a modest sum. I thought it was bad enough when the "Star" contestants last Christmas received handouts but now it's happening to regular contestants it's getting a bit stupid now.

The whole point of the show is that it's based on luck - some win big, some don't. It's quite clear Endemol are trying to manufacture a big win by forcing people on with low offers but it's backfiring on them due to bad luck. And their backup plan is to offer contestants extra money, almost as a way of apologising for the bad offers. Surely it would be better to make decent offers and see a few £25k / £30k wins at 5-box rather than pushing them to the end, seeing them win a blue and then giving them a bit of money anyway.

What another terrible game.

Sob stories
Low offers
Big crash
blue end
Expensive prize for winning a blue.

When is it going to end? I guess at least the tension was there.

Ans why are Endemol throwing around money like it means nothing? Now it doesn't matter if a blue is in your box because you're almost guarenteed you'll get an extra couple of grand anyway . What is the point on having the blues on the board if player's winnings ge bumped up anyway. I came home from my first day of sixthform hoping for a really entertaining start, but it was all dreary and teary. I am losing my teather with the show now, and yes, I will eventually stop watching it, because I'm already at the stage where if I miss a show I am not particularly bothered about catching up with it.

It's more like Christmas Stars at the moment, where they get loads of gifts for having sob stories at the end. That's my opinion and I am not changing it.

Don't forget they can always apply the Endemol USA/NBC logic to not airing a game because it wasn't deemed "exciting" enough. We're lucky to have producers who deem every show a valuable to them.

You do wonder Mr. B's techniques in the last fortnight. Maybe they're now on the "who cares what happens it makes good telly" bandwagon?

Totally agreed with h there. We need offers that can be taken or rejected either way, and if you win a blue that's the chance you take and you might regret No Dealing just as people who undersell big reds can regret Dealing. (Of course, Noel only accepts the latter of these regrets, so that would never do.) Instead, Endemol are trying to create forced big finishes, then (both as means of continual advocacy of gambling and as apology for their Banana Sandwich in the game) bailing themselves out at the end.

We need the show to present a balanced view of gambling and the way to do that is actually to fix the game so it's balanced again. I'll accept that's a very KP-ish angle I've proposed here, but I stand by it. It'd sort out everyone else's concerns with the show too (well maybe some Wakeyists might complain because they'd get to hear the D-word without its prefix )...

This is atrocious luck.

It's like the Banker as good as knows for a fact that the big money won't be won, so he chucks in low offers on purpose.

This is absolutely awful...and yet you just know very soon it's going to happen to someone, only the end result will be huge!

Okay, $5 Canadian says that we'll be seeing more of these unnecessary bonuses throughout the entire season. I used to say that if it were up to me, everyone who had a trainwreck game would get $1,000. But now, after watching End 'Em All actually put this theory into practice, I can say that it's not a good idea at all. It also erodes the "evil" personality of the Banker. He supposed to be someone who wants the players to get out with as little money as possible, and then when someone does that, ie: winning a blue, he then rewards them. It's as if sitting in the Crazy Chair and just showing up will earn you bonus money if your game bottoms out. At this rate, they'll probably give a 1p winner an extra £10,000 or something. In short, it's wrong, and it shouldn't be done.

i dont understand the ridicouslyl ow offers, has the programme no money at the mo?

10k for mary and now stuart 12-15k on quite ok last 5 boxes with the 250k!!?? i never thought he offer 15k on strong boards with 5 boxes left with 250k?

how are people gnna win good money now unless they go to 2 box now??

Poor stuart and mary, and the enxt few contestants if the offers are this low...confusing.

i think todays show was the worst ever in terms of how the show is getting worse, Extra prizes for blue wins shouldn't be given away as the point is that it should be popssible to win hardly anything and not get an extra £1,000 thrown in.

Also the offers are terrible, i don't possibly see how they can get out of this bad situation now. especially with people constantly saying the offers are good when they are derisory.

I think it all boils down to the people they have as contestants, 95% seem to be people who either need money so they don't need to be offered much to leave, or they are people with a sob story who feel emotional and will deal easily, therefore over paying the offers to much gets them out and doesn't have excitement. they need more people who read the board and aren't too scared to gamble money

Ooops! I'd have said more than just "cobblers" at the end of that game! It was quite an exciting show though! At least he was prepared to risk it until the end.

What a load of cobblers today. It's not Deal or No Deal anymore, it's just "open your box". The offers are so pathetic now that a game is either

a) A player deals for a low amount for the board
b) A player is forced to go to the end and wins a blue
c) A player is forced to go to the end and wins a lot

Except c) isn't happening at all.

Without the added gimmick at the end, this game would have been perfect. Ok, the result wasn't but it was a very good game that I really got into.

Stuart played the game well, and deserved a lot more than £10 after declining those hideous offers.

Please, no more gimmicks. But more games [up to the revealing of the contents of the box, not afterwards] like this please.