What do you think about Season 4? What changes would you like to see in Season 5?
We've seen many more banker's gambles offered, and more shows with an offer after each box in Round 6 like the American version.

What is your verdict?

I think it's certainly an improvement on the latter half of Season 3, which was dogged by bad luck and seemed to have a negative effect on the remaining contestants on the wings, resulting in tears and 'bad' deals being commonplace.

Season 4 has seen some great periods, such as the big-money era in December and the long run of red wins in February / March. It's also had some very special shows and games, including the show 1,000 specials and Alice's £250,000 win (and the 3rd-offer-deal OPWs for the stats lovers!). Not forgetting the many characters it's had, including Walter and £75k Mary. Of course I think Season 4 was brilliant because I was a part of it. Did I ever mention on here that I was on the show?

I'm unsure about the banker's motives recently with the increased number of twists - including generous banker's gambles, offers after every box and so on. They are designed for good TV, but sometimes a game can be just as entertaining when it's allowed to take its natural course. On the other hand, some of the banker gimmicks have undoubtedly helped to spice up some otherwise boring games - and it allowed the show to gain its 2nd quarter-millionaire!

The question now (at the risk of sounding like killersbee), is will Season 5 see the first male quarter-millionaire? Or even a third female winner? And assuming Season 5 makes it through to next summer, will there be a Season 6 in August 2010, or will the show have run its course by then?

From the handful of Season 4 shows I've seen, I can't really see much difference in the show even going back to Season 1. Sure, there's more special shows, things like the Banker's Gamble and stuff being offered, but essentially the show's still about opening boxes and getting offers from a Banker, just how it's been for four years.

You still get the same groups of contestants - the wacky pensioners, the gamblers, the cautious early Dealers, the young attractive ones who get 50-page fanclubs, etc. You still get Noel excitedly calling games "The best/worst we've EVER had" (and blatantly lying each time), periods of extreme bad luck and then extreme good luck, these have all been going on since the show started.

So to finally answer your question I think the show's the same as it's always been, and always will unless they massively change the format which would probably kill the show off. Can't think of anything I'd change for Season 5, although I would like to see a player take the second offer. I think it's possible and has to happen at some point...

I reckon - fear? - that the stable door has bolted on the 14-box Deal prospect, but I'd love to see it just to see Apocalypse Noel in the four-round proveout. And also because I reckon Endemol would respond by making 4-box and 3-box offers permanent, which I have no objection to whatsoever.

Deal or No Deal seems to be at a critical point. It doesn't know whether to evolve or go through the motions; it doesn't know whether to endorse gambling beyond the point of reason or to be Noel's Recession Presents; in short, it doesn't know whether it wants to be the same show we all fell in love with in 2006 or not. I don't know if it's better or worse, I don't even know if it's different as the answer to that seems to be 'yes and no', but I'm going to say it is better because the show has at least made some efforts to recognise the dramatically changed backdrop it now operates under (and this show is affected by that more than possibly any other on television).

I think the next set of filmed episodes will be the turning point. Which is why I'd rather like to go up to Bristol and see one of them.

Will the show have run its course? It's down to the general viewing public come 2010. I suspect if there are people watching then Channel 4 will allow Endemol West to churn out the recordings. Yes, the ratings aren't as high as they were back in 2006 but the show is consisantly appearing on Channel 4's top 30 each week. Therefore beating shows in primetime so they must be doing something right. Also there hasn't been any show since their debut that has been popular on daytime. There is Golden Balls but nearly everyone has now catched on with the end game and the format being predictible.

I will confess they have done a smart thing with the summer break and use repeats than have something new or Location, Location, Location. I wish they would extend the summer break more than four weeks. Don't be surprised when season 5 start they will broadcast the weekend show on Saturday.

I enjoyed Season 4 for much of the reasons already stated. I enjoy the offers after each box in Round 6 although I don't think it should be permanent, and I do like the banker's gambles because it provides great drama to what could otherwise be a relatively dull proveout. I still think they should consider adding an extra element to the weekend show, whether it be Saturday or Sunday, either in terms of more prize money or the chance to win a holiday or whatever.

The argument of not tinkering with a successful format doesn't hold because that is exactly what we've seen in Season 4 for various shows, and I don't see anything wrong with that. They've changed the format of WWTBAM in terms of prize money and it is still going strong after nearly 11 years. DOND will only be celebrating its 4th birthday in about three months time and I think it still has a lot of life left in it, hopefully with Noel still as host for a good while yet.

Yes.

While the format of the game hasn't changed that much (twists etc), the games in this season have been much better than some in the previous one.

The season started off on a bit of a downer, with bad luck and some generally average games. This lead to however, this forum becoming far more positive and an all round better place (you know why..).

Thankfully, things picked up. Soon, we had Julie's game giving us the first big win of the season (albeit controversially to some people). Games became better (from what I remember).

And then, we hit the turning point of Season 4. Keran's game. That amazing game. The games after this were great, really enjoyable. The shows over Christmas was fantastic, with two massive wins.
This trend continued for the rest of the season in most cases. Yes, there were some games that weren't as great but you're always going to get that.

Special mention goes to Mary's game, Love Week (Dan, Clare, Jimmy etc), H's time on the show, the brilliant specials and 1,000th game.

Finally, we came to the season finale. What needs to be said about that has already been said. One of the best games of the season.

So, that ends as such my season review.
The only thing left to say, is bring on season 5.

I think it has got much better, due to the Banker's Gamble being offered every so often to spice up a game more. David (h2005) appeared on the show which is obviously a really good thing. We got our second £250,000 win with Alice, which was due to the Banker's Gamble. I believe the offer-after-every-box rule in round 6 could be made permanent; it would certainly make contestant's gamble a lot more, creating more big wins than if it was left out. I believe the show will be on TV for a good few more years yet, and would love it to as I would like to appear on there someday.

Good point that the permanent four-box and three-box offers would cause more risk-taking players - it's been a proven method of seducing players (look at Halloween week this season!), and it's got to be a better way of doing it than rubbish offers or prodding from the host that's for sure... would expect this to become a permanent feature, perhaps midway through season 5.

I would imagine that right now it might not create that many huge box wins, but you could expect more big-money Deals, like the ones we saw last week.

I think a 14 box deal will happen eventually. All it would take is for the banker/production team to read a player wrongly and give a high offer at the 2nd offer point. The question is, if someone dealt at the 2nd offer, would it be shown on TV? I'm not a fan of the offer after every box thing, I think it's more exciting when they've got to open 3 boxes.

I don't even think that is enough - if it were, Dan and Dot (1) would both have Dealt at 14-box. However, they went on for non-financial reasons, and I can't see anyone who gets into a similar situation not to be talked out of it by Noel.

I'm not watching the show anymore, but I think I could pass a judgement by watching a random selection of shows throughout 2009.

I watched the show through till around 2 weeks before H played, and the show began to pick itself up from a melancholic problem show to a more energetic gameshow, which was the main point of the reason why I watched Deal or No Deal in the first place.

The overall format has just stayed the same. Yeah, we have the odd Banker's Gamble, but it's the Banker's choice of gameplay. I don't think he should be giving players 4-box and 3-box offers blasé, and I sort of think I wouldn't like to see it again. At the beginning, people had to make decisions upon opening 3 boxes which was a risky decision. It somewhat makes it easier to play, which I don't think is right and doesn't really suit the UK version. Mainly because of the offer patters. Opening 3 boxes at a time gives a nice vary of offers whereas opening one box begins to change ever so slightly. 1 box rounds may be an advantage for the player, but I don't like the sound of it. It suits the American version and I don't even think it suits the Aussie version that much.

In terms of change for Season 5, what would I like to see? I'd like to see the energy in the dream factory being maintained and built upon during a game. This game now is familiar to pretty much everyone, and, like Billy said, changing the format would just be wrong. I wouldn't mind if they changed the set, however the one for Seasons 3 and 4 I didn't really like compared to the mysterious aura the Season 1 and 2 set gave. Maybe different style boxes? They should have a fiddle around with the set for a while, come up with a few fresh ideas. I think they should revert more to a mysterious 2005/6 look. That said, I wouldn't like it to go all 16-bit colour screens across the studio, it would just look too ITV-y.

Lighting I think they should alter as well. Maybe different colour combinations through the rounds. I also think that when the Banker rings, the lights go off, and flicker red for each ring of the phone and then stay red during the call. I think they should use the green lighting more often than not because it looks better than the blue-y purple layout they use now.

To answer the question, the show has improved, but the game is still the same...

i voted 1st option.i prefer the older seasons reather than the new.

Well, Season 4 was great because like others have said, now I just hope what Season 5 will bring, more huge wins, a 3rd QM Winner perhaps, or maybe someone finally wins a 6-figure offer since £101k Graeme?

Or perhaps there'll be over 200 1p winners?!

I think things might be improved if the board was changed ever so slightly.

Basically, I'd remove the 2 lowest blues (except the 1p), and move the two oranges to the left of the board, whilst adding in 2 new red values: 7500 and 25000.

....
500
750
1000
3000

5000
7500
10000
15000
20000
25000
35000
50000
75000
100000
250000

Not that much money is being added to the board, but boards will generally be a little bit more stable, meaning that offers can be slightly bigger, leading to more interesting decisions.

I think offers should be bigger anyway. Not big as in overly generous, just big enough to be fair. All offers should be dealable. Most offers aren't. This is not good TV when the player does not have a decision.

I'd also like to see a reduction in the number of gimmicks. We seem to have a great number of them recently, and they pretty much ruin the game until 5-box.

Also, 5-box should be 3 boxes to open. I do not think that one box at a time should become permanent.

I came up with that sort of board about 18 months ago cfd - but that one is so much easier than the 3-colour system I tried to come up with!

I agree that it's also annoying that special shows don't have a decision to make until 5-box. In summer specials week I felt like the first offers were dealable as the next three offers were bound to be less generous! Imagine a game which could normally have produced tough decisions at 11-box and 8-box (such as 4p Mark's) then has a dramatic collapse before 5-box - it would be a total joke in summer weeks!!

You wish!

same, although i thought this season was alright better than the last one at least...

Well... I liked this season