That bit is obvious; nobody knows what is where, until the final decision is made in the game (ie Swap or No Swap etc), and then the IA tells Noel what is on the table...thus making sure he can either prompty big up the game to a massive climax, like we saw with Lauren on Sunday, or to gently bring it out in games such as Margaret's back at the start of the year where she won the 1p.

I don't think she was swayed by previous games, although the big wins had certainly contributed to an exuberant, positive atmosphere in the studio. What the editing process disguises is the length of time spent deciding and the decision processes, and at that moment, she was concentrating on her own game and whether she could risk £28k, and understandably decided she couldn't.

As for Noel's action, certainly after the show he put a positive spin on the result, looking at how the offers had progressed up to that stage. During the show, not so sure. He prefers players to go on when the £250k is still in play I think because he wants that glory moment, so any deal before 2 box he's probably not going to be over the moon about. I think he gets a bit drawn in by the excitement of the biggie still being there, and perhaps doesn't give enough perspective to the player's situation and the offer decision sometimes.

He is a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde type character at recordings, though. (Don't tell him I said that!)

Hah!

That is telling. It may well be that the split personality is his true self against what Endemol want... very interesting.

It is Noel's job to suppress any desire for 'that glory moment' and allow the game to take its natural course. It's all very well him wanting big happy moments - the viewers do too. But the means of him attempting to engineer such moments can amount to little more than the promotion of fiscal recklessness to an audience of three million, disproportionately children, the elderly and the unemployed... definitely not the audience to do it to!

(And this is why I care so much about Noel's behaviour. It's the players' choice on what to do and if they're swayed by Noel so be it, it's just one factor amongst many in that studio environment and very few decisions could be entirely attributed to the host although many more could be partly attributed. It's the fact that the game can become, as Weaver once legendarily put it, 'a 45-minute illustrated lecture on the merits of gambling, even when the illustrations completely contradict his message'. That is wrong, and the editors have a lot to blame too if Noel can and does flip round the other way.)

Like anyone rational would gamble thousands of pounds just because they a) want confetti or b) pay attention to their son's drawings.

And swaps with the £250,000 left aren't hypothetical.

In my opinion there's nothing wrong with getting a bit too attached to the game hehe! Not his fault; he's been wanting to make another jackpot winner for all-but two years now!

It is understandable, it adds to the excitement if the host really cares, but it is wrong for it to happen in this sense. As I've said before - I'm not so much worried about the contestants (well, I am, but they're playing their game and there's too much else that could change their decisions) but about the message promoted to the audience. It's one thing to change one contestant's decision on a game show, it is quite another to endorse fiscal recklessness to an audience of three million of whom many are children.

(Noel's other talents - at building up drama or comedy from very little, at running on a tight taping schedule without many mistakes - are not to be underestimated though, and would be hard to find in another host if a replacement were ever necessary for whatever reason.)

You never saw Chris Tarrant lose his sense of neutrality when both he and ITV were desperate to see a jackpot winner on Millionaire did you? The Duncan Bickley episode proves that once and for all - if Tarrant were acting in the Edmondsesque manner you consider entirely reasonable, not a word of warning would have been uttered. Tarrant is the template Edmonds should be following, but unfortunately they have been rivals on television for decades, so you're not going to see Edmonds adopt the method of Tarrant. I'm pretty sure Tarrant has mocked this particular trait of Edmonds with a big 'if you'd been a little bit braver... you'd have just lost £x,000' when the occasion allows it (Travis?), and that is not surprising either.

Last word goes to Dougal though:



To which I can only reply that the host, and half the forum, must therefore be irrational people.

CT has done that little spiel a long while before Deal or No Deal arrived on Channel 4's airwaves regardless if somebody would've lost/would've won. Don't forget, he claimed that somebody with Duncan Bickley's attitude will win somebody £1 Million (he mentioned this when he collected his £32K cheque and Bickley stated £250,000 was "only" money). I know a fact that he won't be nice to you if you either disrespect guaranteed money or take ages to answer one question.

To be honest, the show has been airing for over three years and there hasn't been a majority who have spoken out about Noel's presenting towards this. Maybe the majority of viewers/critics couldn't care less. At least he hasn't put his life in the gutter (now confirmed he will be marrying his soulmate), unlike a certain Australian presenter. No doubt if Brian Conley got the job then I wouldn't be surprised if he did the same now.

I know they're not hypothetical in that they wouldn't have been offered but I've never seen the banker offer money for a box that isn't on the table when the offer is made.

You seem to have a much lower opinion of the IA than i do, Personally i'd like to believe she maintains a dignified silence until the end of the game

I suspect that if Jane hadn't played during Santa or Scrooge week she might have got offered the swap at the first offer, and if she'd taken it that would have been a whole different ball game