Since i'm trying in a desperate attempt to keep activity on here going (besides the stupid spambots clogging up the forum )......

When do you honestly think "Deal" stopped being good? For me, the last good period of DoND was the first half of 2009, i.e. The Dan Judge/H2005/1000th show era, and I thought the Post-1000th show era (Easter 2009 through to £75k Amy's game) was pretty good too, but then it kind of slumped back into it's Season 3-esque mediocrity again after that. But I think the show really started to go downhill after Ramesh's game in April 2010, with a period of bad luck during the summer months, and players noticeably getting more and more cautious during the latter half of the year, and once the show became an hour long, the show became practically unwatchable due all the padding and forced humour. Not to mention the fact that most contestants from 2010-onwards were so cautious, that the majority of them were essentially using the game as an ATM rather than playing the game statistically, as they were always taking "safety first" 8-box or 5-box (sometimes 11-box) deals, which meant we were often starved of big wins or even remotely exciting games

Honestly, the only period where the show felt completely rotten was post-Iris in 2013. That game felt like a catalyst to an absurd level of caution shown by nearly every contestant. The game felt like a simple game of just getting to the 3rd offer (even though the 1st two offers were often the most generous of the game ) and then weighing up whether they should deal then or go on and DEFINITELY deal at 8 box regardless of the offer (unless of course the game was a total trainwreck). And with the show still having an hour long time slot for every game, and filler used a lot of these games was so tedious it felt like a chore just to sit through an episode.

Yes, there was Marlene's and Paddy's games, but they felt like total flukes given they were both surrounded by extreme caution and poor offers. Granted, we should be thankful those 2 had by far the strongest boards during that era, for if virtually anyone else from that era had those boards there's 0 chance those games would be in live play past 8 box.

Things started looking up in December somewhat with Nenad's and Gwyn's games, but it still felt like the show was completely dominated by uber-caution, especially in the Christmas specials where every game was either a trainwreck or an 8 box deal.

As much crap as we give Box 23, it's absolutely what the show needed at the time. It was a subtle way to get players thinking they have a safety net even of all goes wrong, and gave some players the needed push to decline a poor 11 or 8 box offer.

Not to mention that out of the very few contestants who were actually prepared to take risks during that era, almost all of them ended up winning blues, with the only notable exception being £20k Rosie who recovered to a near-spanking by opening her box following the £425k nightmare round in the fifth round. Olivia from October could qualify too as she had a strong board most of the way through and actually declined some significant offers, but was just unlucky to suddenly have a one-box game at 5-box, then take a decent get-out offer and then fail to find the £250k in the proveout

My knowledge of the "recent era" is probably pretty weak because most of the DonD episodes on internet are from 2005-2009, but when i check some resume, or some videos of recent games, it seems we saw very poor offer in the "recent games".

When you have Blue/Low Red finish, offers were nowhere in recent era. Like a few hundred pounds when you can win 3k or 5k, or 1/2k when you can win 10/15k on a coin flip.

I watch most of the 2005 episodes and the offers were a lot better (at least 1k on Blue/£3,000 finish. It helps to see a lot of "cautious deal" because you can think "Well, i have no way to quit if i have a bad round i'm gonna be punished for a bad round".

I saw a lot of recent episodes where first/second/third deal would be the "good move" because after you fall into the blue offers despite the presence of red amounts on the board.

I know i'm very cautious, but i think it cames to play, it's a lot more easier to gamble when you know you can have an emergency issue in case of problem, and in "recent era" you don't have this. It's the same idea with the french version with "swap offers".

In the french version (not the recent from 2014) but the older in 2005, i advise 9 times on 10 a "first deal offer" because after you can have only "swaps offers" and then you are screwed. On a french youtube episode a guy had £1/£500,000. In the uk version you can except for this finish (i know the top prize is 250k) but in the uk i guess the offer would be at least £90 000 ?

His offer was a SWAP then another SWAP when his first answer was NO SWAP and he won the £1.

I think he had huge regrets (not sure if it's an english word as well ?) huge remorse for not taking some offers at 20/30/50k before. I could write a resume of this game like the uk ones. The weak offers in uk can have a similar effect i think. The fear of a very weak offer which means "no way to escape" can lead to early deal even if the uk version i would almost never advise a 1st offer deal like the french version.

I'd also be dealing the 1st financial offer in most games on the French and Italian version in the early days as they're usually quite generous for the board and 95% of the time either 1) the Banker will make progressively LESS generous offers as the game progresses and/or 2) I'll be forced to the end by bunch of swaps.

Yeah, a guy thought about dealing at first offer in 2014 version and his only offer was a bunch of swaps or offer less generous than the first one, he ended up by winning something like 2k or 3k in his box and a first offer deal would have been a spanking.

Another guy dealt at the 2nd offer, and he had a *beep* proveout

Random Blue
Random Blue
Random Blue
£10,000

BANKER'S OFFER WOULD'VE BEEN

£7,000

: You dealt too soon OH DEAR OH DEAR OH DEAR !!!

For me the show went downhill when it went from the 45 minute format to the 60 minute format.

When 23 and the button killed the show for me as every game was the same for me, contestant gets button, presses button at 6 box or something deal, then NO DEAL 23. boom game over. That got really boring after a while and ruined the excitement for me, I missed the big wins and the excitement of it.

I'm going to say the start of 2011 was the beginning of the end for me too - not only did the extended time slot make it a lot more tedious, but also crucially they stopped repeating it on More 4 in the evenings (and due to me working I couldn't see it live) so that's when my participation started to wane.

I didn't really last long enough to see Box 23 anything more than very occasionally but there were two reasons it didn't work for me - the NOTHING option meaning nearly everyone who'd won anything significant just wouldn't risk it (though there was the odd exception) and it was a really only a tool to try and rescue the extra 10 grand out of a blue win, or it was another way the players could be seen to have "lost" (i.e. if they chose not to take it and it had double or 10 grand in)!

IMO, you can divide Deal's run into four 'eras': the Golden Era, 2005-07, the Silver Era, 2008-10, the Bronze Era, 2011, 12 and most of 13, and the Final Era, the rest of 2013 onwards.

I would say the introduction of Box 23 was probably when the show officially stopped being good, but it had, to be fair, been running on empty for at least a few months beforehand; how many is open to interpretation. Some would say Iris's game, which sparked the year long run of terrible Banker stinginess, was the start; others may be prepared to give it a few more months to include Marlene's and Paddy's games and the run of good ones we had at the start of September.

Hard for me to say as I stopped watching consistently from 2008/2009. The format was always going to dry up, I think they did well to keep it going for as long as they did. I should watch the later series to get a good understanding of what they did to keep it fresh.

I reckon once when 23 and offer button came in. The show died IMO. What was a fun exciting format in the early years 2005-2012 I'd say turned into the bore show with predictable deals and cautious players and too many gimmicks from 2013 onwards

Depends on who you ask.

I was reading a general thread on DOND on another forum, with mostly completely 'regular' viewers who just switched it on to see what Noel was doing having returned from out of the wilderness.

Many of them were burned out by... December 2005. And many more were frustrated when Kirsty didn't win the £250k (April 2006) cos it meant they couldn't just ditch the show for good having satisfied that itch.

Sop, yeah. Apples and oranges!