So Deal or No Deal starts in 2005, it builds in popularity, reaches a peak in the Spring with Lucy, Marcus, Pat M, etc, and games ranging from 1p Trevor's to £100k Gaz's. In Season 2 you had people like Harry and Jeff in the early months, before the second peak in January with Laura, Psychic Sarah, Julie, Bunney, etc, and after that is still quite recent in a lot of minds. But that leaves the bit in between.

I'm talking about the few months of shows that happened after Morris's game in May last year, up to the end of Season 1 with Giorgio. Except Giorgio himself, not a single one of these shows have been repeated since soon their original transmission, the classic repeats from February-August this year were pretty much evenly spread-out across the first year or so of the programme's life...except this era.

What did everyone think of this run of shows? We had contestants like June, Buzz, Stevie, Pennie, Sally and Giorgio, and while Lance wouldn't play until Season 2 he did most of his wing-run in Season 1. But we also had quite a lack of huge wins, it's the era with the longest ever run without any wins of £50,000 or more, a whole 71 shows between Gaz's £100,000 and Buddy's £50,000. And there was only one box win over £5,000 (!) and that was Ron's £20,000, one of the few Banker beatings of Double Deal Week!

My memories of it are quite vague, I only have one game from this era and haven't seen any of the others since they were on. It had some good moments (Wheelchair Peter's game was awesome, as was Melanie's third-offer OPW) but then it had some bad ones (the run of blue wins in Double Deal Week, and the shows right at the end where the 1p club almost doubled in the space of about a week). It was ok but could be hit and miss, I wish they'd repeat some of the shows though!

There were some good shows and characters in the chair - but I think it was a poor era both for classic games and for getting to know contestants before they played.

There were always a few you were looking forward to seeing play, and some who have remained legends, but a lot were coming to the chair having barely said anything beforehand, and generally the banter between Noel and the wings just didn't seem to be there, from the end of Pat M's run until the first summer break. I know at that stage I thought it would never again reach the heights of March to early May, but I think now it just about has done in eras like October 06, January 07 and either side of this year's summer break.

Double Deal Week was a bit of overkill and they didn't really make the best use of the Hall of Fame contestants - would have been nice to find out a bit more about their lives since appearing on the show. Some of the trainwreck games didn't help. And while "1p week" was painful to watch, it was certainly an unforgettable end to the season!

I think like any era it had its ups and downs. It lacked a really massive win (the biggest two wins came from ridiculously high offers for Suzanne and Buddy rather then big box openings), but there were certainly some nail-biters with biggish wings of around 30k or so.

And it had its fair share of fabulous contestants too - the line up for the 200th game (Ron's was one of favourites ever, the end product was greater than the sum of the parts - other eras tended to depend of 5 or 6 big characters). They kept the double deal thing going for me, especially all the primetime shows that were all OBWs except Chrissie!

It was only the last two weeks of the season, first of all when everyone seemed to deal too late then too early (Pierre, Monica, Sue), then "blue" week, and even the red wins were OBWs, and Buddy's 50k felt a bit undeserved, sucked a bit. By the end of the season, Lance and Giorgio were basically holding it up themselves, and the memorable charcters of early season 2, such as Emi, Naughty Naughty Barbara and Cocky Bill had yet to make their mark as newbies. Really the only two things drawing me back after the summer break were Lance's game and the return of Joseph who was one of the games I was most looking forward to when he disappeared. Lance winning a blue might have stopped me watching!

But I certainly wish for many games to be repeated as classics : Emma B, June, Buzz, Stevie, Bearded James, Suzanne, Peter, most from DD week, Shirley, Ryan, Melanie (this one more than any other!), Mark W, Mad Paul, Linda E, Vic, Roy, even Buddy!

I actually quite liked this era... and yes, there were few big wins, but it doesn't mean that big wins = good shows. £100k Maria, £75k Maria, £50k Lynn... examples of big wins and nail-biting games, but I can barely remember what they looked like. Ron on the other hand, for example - I remember clearly because I liked him on the wings (e.g. what with his flirting with Stevie in her game), despite him not winning a massive amount. The same goes for people like Roy, Pierre, June, Stevie, Khanny, Lance, Spiky Paul, Giorgio, Cocky Bill, Joseph, Buzz, Bearded James, Ryan, Mad Paul, Vic... these were all players I liked whilst they were on the wings and liked in their game!

So overall, I don't personally think this era deserves its reputation. To be honest, I think I probably like this era as much as I like the late-November / early-December 2006 era - there were some good characters on the wings, but it wasn't anything to write home about (yes there were some good games in the form of Lynne's, but she'd done nothing on the wings and had a short run...).

I only saw up to Jannelle's game, which I disliked, but I seem to remember the few weeks before that being very good, notably Shirley's game.

I actually think this is quite possibly the best era of the show's history! (Though maybe actually it peaked in April.)

The offer pattern was better than any before or since, with relatively few insults and moderation in the early offers giving players something to think about right away but with early Deals still having some shock value; Noel was almost always sensible, to my recollection; in short, in terms of gameplay (my main priority) this was about as good as it got.

Though the last fortnight deserves its bad reputation; the only big winner struck me as cocky and reckless, three people won 1p including one of the only two notable characters left, and the summer break came at precisely the right time - as two all-time classics were to come second and most especially third in the first week back!

The Month of June's a bit fuzzy to me but some shows Pennie/Shirley etc. were excellent and I'd love to see them repeated.

It was a pretty mixed month before it crashed in July then recovered for Nick's and Lance's games then the atmosphere and noel changed a bit.

I have trouble remembering past games at the best of times but my overwhelming memory of this period was the Double Deal week which nearly killed the show for me. I think the summer break came just at the right time...

What I remember was really frustrating about this era was how many contestants were coming to the chair having said nothing but "good luck" while in the wings, then turned into real characters in their game. It just felt like they weren't developing characters that were there all along, until they actually played for some reason. Mad Paul was a prime example - you always got the impression he was a bit crazy but we didn't really see much of him until his game, which was one of the classic "funny and money" (as Noel referred to it) games - they could have made a lot more of him in previous shows and had people really anticipating his game.

I think a lot of us felt that the show needed to get back to basics and have Noel connecting with those in the wings again - whether the problem was down to editing or not isn't clear. But that was the main reason why I thought the show was really going downhill at that time. Fortunately that side of things picked up again in season 2.