I think it's been far from "boring" recently, we've had plenty of memorable shows for all kinds of reasons. Obviously not every game can be a classic, and it does go through quieter phases but I don't think these last few weeks have been one of them. We've had Lynne's amazing game, a number of dramatic games involving the £20k, the two painful £250k finishes, and Ned's unique show.

I sometimes think that there's very little we have yet to see, in gameplay terms, apart from a £250k win and someone throwing away a huge amount and leaving with peanuts. But it still has that ability to surprise.

It needs a few more 'characters', sad to say I sometimes look round and don't remember people and I watch every day without fail.

(Maybe that says more about my memory than the lack of notable contestants!)

I still don't see why Donna's fiancee has been seen as any worse than previous partners who influence games. I didn't actually hear him tell her categorically to deal, all I heard was him talking things through realistically, which is actually fair enough. He really shouldn't be made the scapegoat for an unfortunate game, the post mortem of which will run longer than poor Donna's tears will.

At the time, £21,000 was a reasonable deal price. I think the offer would have gone down if she had hit either of the two big ones in the following round, and there was a good risk of that happening. And this game is about risk, and real money. Yes I thought her tears and blame of her fiancee were excessive, but I can totally understand the reasons behind her dealing when she did.

As an afterthought, I don't see how anyone can say Donna should no longer be with her fiancee. That is a gross overreaction. If it'd been that he'd told her to no-deal in that situation against her will, and she'd ended up with a blue amount, it'd have been far worse, but still not justification to dump him. Lets remember this game is about chance and good judgement, but it is not an exact science and cannot be seen as such.

I agree with you. I remember most of the contestants from the start of this year, but theres a couple on the wings at the moment whose names I couldn't tell you.

Standing out for me at the moment are:

Brian, Simon, Wendy, Joey, Wrighty and Danny.

But thats about it I'm afraid to say.

(I still love the show though)

Well that's about the usual number of stand-out characters you get at any one time. There's not enough airtime for any more! A number of others will become memorable characters through their game after you haven't really noticed them much before, and there's always some who never make that much of an impression.

Donna was really ditzy but that was quite the loveable thing about her.


From the show I felt the £21k would normally be a good deal with that configuration - especially for someone like Donna who I have to say is one of the most nervous players I've seen.

However I didn't like how after Noel asked her £21k DOND, her man mouthed Deal a few times. £21k is a lot of money but if it was my fiancee down there I'd tell her to go with her heart and what she wants to do.

This post on DS is interesting though: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/show ... ount=44160

Thanks for this. Very interesting.

This link was posted on there as well!

http://www.donnarampton.co.uk/

Interesting comments though, would be nice to get a fellow contestant's view of how it happened... any comments GK? Simon? Chico?

Agreed.



Agreed.

donna got her own website..woo

I didn't know she was a model.

That site's certainly...fleshy!

Her website is a bit raunchy!!

I wouldnt really call her a model, well definetly not a "proper" one anyway, lol.

As pretty as she is I agree I'm just jealous though maybe.

But hold on a minute - is she famous? How come she has her own website! I've never heard of her.
Edit - other than on DOND of course

There was a safety net of £10,000 which could have helped boost the offer at the 5 box stage even if one of the two big ones had been taken out.

At the risk of offending your sensibilities, just how do you come by the notion that she deserved the 250k? Frankly, I'd have taken the 21k off her for the appalling show of bad sportsmanship she displayed as the proveout took her down the path it did.

Fer gawd's sake, she's walked away with £21k - two years salary for her - and has absolutely nothing to complain about. And that domestic, where she tried to put the blame on her fella? If I were he, she'd be dumped.

Yeah, in hindsight, she could have swept the board, but she was very happy with £21k, and only when the greed took over after the event did she plumet in my estimation.

Sadly, today's game for me was entirely expected. My uncle has had a practice run, directing (as Dond is recorded as live (he has lots of experience from directing Countdown and Brainteaser - in the early days of the National lottery, that too!) in case the main director isn't available in the future. This one was recorded some time in the summer - or it may have been the other £250,000 one, but it was a baptism of fire for him. It was his first show directing, and he was entirely new to the concept. The current director watching over his shoulder, who's done every other game was horrified too, having spent year and a bit recording and the £250,000 so rarely appearing at the table. Still, wrecked the game for me knowing the spoiler, and obviously couldn't be mentioned on here previously due to NDA...

Just to throw my two penneth in. Yes it is a shame that she dealt when she did,, all influences aside, it was ulitmately her decision. I personally cant understand why she cried as much as she did when she knew she had £21,000 going in her bank account the next day. Thats not a sum to be sniffed at this time of the year or indeed any time of the year. Due to unforseen circumstances my hubbie and I cant spend more than a £100 each on our kids this year for xmas so £21,000 would be a fortune to us. ( Just so you know where I am coming from)

I dont think she was stupid for dealing, I dont think she should be called stupid either,, she dealt when she thought she had to. But I do have to admit to shouting at the tv when she broke down as if she had won nothing. People have gone away with a lot less, and she should be grateful for what she won. She was the one that said Deal, not her fella. And maybe Noel was right in what he said at the close of the show about it being a solo game. Keep the families in the audience maybe?

Anyhow sorry had to post.

Guess who forgot to set their video recorder before going out this afternoon...

Donna's show was the third of three recorded on Thursday 19th October (Adie's and Jim's games being the other two). My wife and I were in the audience for all three. Donna followed on from a very distressed Jim, who was unable to complete some re-takes because after the initial recording finished he dissolved into tears. The other contestants were quite affected by this and rallied round him, offering support and consolation. (I was struck and impressed by the strong bond that obviously builds up between the contestants.) Noel asked the studio audience to be cleared for a while so poor Jim could compose himself. I'm not sure if he actually managed the re-takes at all, because when we were led back in, they were setting up for the next game.

No doubt Donna was emotionally affected by Jim's game too - to the extent that she took around two hours to complete her game, much longer than the other two. Every decision took an age.

One lovely aside: when her fiance, sitting in the audience, talked about how he'd proposed to her, he mentioned it took place at a Centre Parcs resort. The production crew decided they wanted a re-take in the first ad-break, with him saying the same thing again but without mentioning Centre Parcs - "just say 'a holiday resort'." Donna was a little distracted while they were setting up, and when Noel asked the question again and the fiance said, "We were at a holiday resort ..." Donna immediately turned round and said, "No, it was a Centre Parcs, don't you remember?" The place dissolved into hysterical laughter.

When her fiance joined her at the table, things took a turn for the worse - the show, of course, is edited to keep it to time, and so a lot of the prevarication was left on the cutting room floor - including, it seemed to me watching it on TV, much of what was a l-o-n-g discussion between the two of them about whether or not she should deal at £21,000. My strong personal impression was that it was definitely Donna's fiance who eventually convinced her to deal at that point.

After that, I felt Noel tended to rub in, excessively, I thought, the bad decision they'd collectively made, which obviously made her feel even worse - though much of this was edited out. At the end, just after the £250k was revealed, Noel got quite angry and commented to the effect that he was becoming increasingly annoyed by games where contestants allowed themselves to be swayed by their partners' aspirations, rather than play their own games. This, too, was edited out - though he made the same point, more calmly, in the show's lead-out.

As the exhausted, emotionally wrung-out audience was lead out of the studio, Donna was still sitting in the chair, sobbing her heart out, with several of the production team trying to console her with cuddles and comments like, "My bank manager would love to see me putting twenty-one thousand in my bank account."

A good game? Oh yes. Compelling TV, to be sure - and a terrific day out for us.

On a personal note, I noticed that the production team were really friendly and chatty with the audience throughout the day, making us all feel really special and part of the whole production - and they were more than helpful when I discovered, outside in the pouring rain, that the battery on our car (illicitly parked elsewhere on the industrial estate, where it most certainly shouldn't have been - promise I won't do it again!) had gone flat - I rushed back to the rapidly-emptying building desperate for assistance, and they put out a call on their walkie-talkies and found a cameraman who had some jump leads to get me going again. Thanks, guys.