I'm curious, was Janelle from June/July 2006 the only person who only played after a handful of shows due to not being liked by the other contestants? I keep on reading about players like Emma from April 2008 who some of her fellow contestants were openly slicing into on here (!), and what's her name? that Thai or Vietnamese woman who played a couple of games before £250k Laura, but I'm pretty sure they both still did a reasonable amount of shows

Obviously you had CJ who did 8 shows and was booted without playing her game due to apparent conflict with the other contestants, and pretty much exactly the same thing happened with Ryan who did 7 shows in June/July 2013 before being 'absent' for 1 show and then replaced by Paddy

I'm kind of in 2 minds about Vaughan from January 2006 who only played on his 12th show. I've seen a couple of people post about how Vaughan was unpopular the others due to his arrogance, although he did seem pretty well liked by the other contestants when I watched his game on YouTube so I'm not sure who to believe here!

You do wonder about the random bag of contestants who were selected to play abnormally early (I class that as under 18 shows and chronically such as under 15 shows). Some, of course, can only afford a very small space of time off work, but others seem genuinely surprised at being picked early.

There was a woman a long while ago who played on her 12th show, during a time when this was reeaaally unusual. She vented her frustration and perplexity at why this was the case on this very website. I'm paraphrasing from forum posts I read about a decade ago, but I'm sure she spoke about how she couldn't take in her game 'experience' because she was so clouded by the fact she was playing so early.

There were a few early players in 2006, such as ''sexy that Banker is'' Maxine and Greengrocer ''I left school at 14 and I did bloody well for it'' Gary. Maybe it meant nothing, but maybe, I dunno, they were pissheads or something.

There was also a chap from 2012 who I've just remembered while typing this out, who was often getting chewed out for being a ''diva''. It was rare for anyone to do less than 20 shows in that era, and he did less than 18, so maybe the ''diva'' banter... was not really banter.

I think that was Jeannie from April 2007 who you're talking about. I remember her posting on here saying she was shocked at being picked so early, and it got people on here thinking that she would do less than 10 shows

Actually wasn't there a guy who played around the start of season 2 that got picked after about 10 shows, and there were signs he wasn't very popular with the others? £3.5k Rob I think. He stood next to Maddie and replaced Giorgio (thus he would've been the first newbie of season 2), and when he chose Maddie to open her box, he said "I'm going with my good friend Maddie now" and got a very moody look from Maddie

Funnily enough, Maddie then revealed the £250k for the second day in a row. When Maddie revealed the £250k in Sarah's game the day before, she was in tears, but when she revealed it in Rob's game, she looked pretty emotionless

About that Ryan character… he was on the wings a few years ago, but was eventually removed for unspecified reasons. He wasn’t there for long, and he never actually played the game.

I’m unsure if Ryan’s dismissal was for bad behaviour or another reason, but I do remember there being some discussion about it on Twitter. I believe it was Ryan himself who instigated the discussion.

I think Ann from July/August (Played while Nong was on the wings) was the shortest-serving player of 2012, and it was only her 16th show. It's interesting players having extreme high/low show counts was once reasonably common in the early days, but since the madness of 'Battle of the sexes' in August/September 2007, it's become rarer and rarer, and most players since then have been doing more 'average' runs and playing after 20-24 shows on the wings.

In 2005/2006, we had 12 people who were on for 30 shows or more, yet NO ONE hit the 30 show mark in 2011 (The highest runners of that year were Andrew and Brenda who did 28 shows). So there was an almost exactly 2 year run between Maria from August 2010 and Mike from July 2012 without anyone hitting the 30 show mark, and after 97-year-old Joe who played on his 10th show (and that was just due to his age) in April 2009, Sarah from February 2014 - 5 years later - was the next person to do less than 15 shows!

And during the last batch of studio shows, I think only Comfort from January 2015 did more than 30 shows (32) and only Shazi did less than 15 shows (11). Comfort probably was only on so long because of the recording break that interrupted her wing run and Shazi was obviously picked so early because they didn't want to hold over a wheelchair bound contestant for over a year.

There was Garvan who only did 10 shows, any reason for this?

He actually did 9 shows, and apart from people who were on the wings during the first and final 22, he is the shortest running DoND player of all time (a record that'll definitely never be broken with the show now finished )

I think it may have just been because of commitments, but I seem to think at least one person has speculated that Garvan was unliked as they "weren't keen on his attitude", years ago in the now-obsolete "How long has each player been on?" thread. I think it was around April 2007 when Jeannie was on the wings and people speculated she wouldn't even do 10 shows (which turned out to be 12), after said contestant posted on here herself saying she only did a very short run and was shocked when she was picked to play

I can't help but wonder if the banker warmed to Garvan, as he gave him that forcing offer of £13k was it? with the £250k and two middle reds at 5-box after being offered more a round earlier and losing the £75k in the fifth round