Alright folks? Hope everyone is OK and keeping well and safe in the current situation.

I’m writing this partly to see if anyone replies to it (I planned to write this before James’ post earlier today), but also because there are things I feel I need to say. Beginning with a long overdue explanation for my monotonous presence on this forum during the last three years of the show’s run.

In all honesty, I’d just had enough of the show TBH. 2013 had been the show’s weakest year and Paddy’s game had removed the one thing that had kept most of us watching for a long time. And, as much as I tried to be impartial on the matter, I just didn’t like Box 23. My feelings on it can be more or less summed up in this extract from my blog marking the show’s cancellation:



And then Roop’s game happened; that was the penultimate commentary I did, and I probably felt after that that it would never be topped and any other shows I did after that would pale in comparison. I did intend to go back to commentating at some point after having a rest, but I just didn’t feel like it.

Around the same time, I developed acute OCD symptoms (the full story behind which I’d rather not disclose), which is why, once I started writing similar things on some commentaries, I found myself unable to stop. (Same thing happened on my UC blogs; I’m only just starting to move on from structuring every blog the same way) And so, that’s why, from just after when I stopped doing commentaries onwards, I became somewhat monotonous on here.

Then, in the Autumn of 2014, I started doing a work placement course, and thus could no longer watch the show regularly. In all honesty, I didn’t really miss it that much; it was obvious that it had run its course and nothing really excited me about it any more. I did still watch it when I could, but I can’t have seen more than a handful of the shows that followed the 2015 recess (though I did see Noel’s game and most of the Farewell Tour episodes, including the last ever show, LIVE).

After the show ended, I sort of put it to the back of my mind for a while, occasionally revisiting it briefly, such as the numerous times a video of Alice’s game got recommended to me on YouTube, and when Challenge showed the first run of shows in late 2018 (I recorded Andy Kelly and Nick Bain’s games).

But then, these past few weeks, following Weaver’s Week’s recent chronicling of Noel’s life and career, I’ve found myself drawn back towards the show somewhat, especially the just over three years when I wasn’t watching regularly (c. Feb 2007 to May 2010) and the time after I started my course.

It helps that there are a lot more episodes available online than there used to be after ilovedond closed down; the other day, for example, I rewatched one of the 2009 Halloween episodes pretty much all the way through, though I skipped over the first four offers, as they were largely irrelevant in special weeks in those days. I’ll still defend most of the special weeks, though even they became somewhat ‘meh, been there done that’ eventually.

But it was something Weaver said in his Noel chronicles on the subject of Deal. Discussing a sample show he watched for the articles, specifically Kate’s game from October 2009, he pointed out that, even though she missed out on a £35,000-£50,000 final two, she had still won £22,000, which for her was a year's salary.

And that makes me realise something: we really did take the competitive element of the show way too seriously, didn’t we?

I mean, how many times did we dismiss games like this simply because the player undersold one of the Power 5 regardless of what they’d won?

I think KP summed it up best when he remarked of Toni’s game from November 2011 that Deal was the only show where a win of £26,000 could be seen as a ‘miserable failure’, especially when the contestant involved was in severe financial straits.

I’d like to think that, were we to come back and recommentate on those old episodes nowadays, much older and much wiser, we’d be able to take a different attitude to ‘cautious deals’ like those. I know I certainly would probably.

Also, what with the current lockdown situation, and all the TV shows that have had to be recorded behind closed doors/over Skype etc, I wonder whether a revival of Deal could’ve worked over Skype. I mean, it can’t be that hard to dig out an old DoND board game set and get a host to open the boxes in the manner of Jasper Carrot on Golden Balls. You could invite all the players who didn’t get to play at the end of the show’s run and all the leftover pairs from the Double Trouble shows to be the players.

In all honesty, though, unless it’s to give all those who missed out a chance finally, I don’t think Deal needs a revival, not yet anyway. I’d rather it be something to remember for the time being, a case of ‘it was fun while it lasted’ as it were. I hope to catch up on some more old episodes online in the coming weeks.

If you want to, there are plenty of old eps from the late 00s on YouTube, and Amazon Prime has made every 2008 episode available to its subscribers.

Well, that’s all for now folks. If you want to talk to me at greater length, I advise you to contact me on Twitter @jack_jmmcb, as I spend a lot more time on there than I do elsewhere nowadays.

So, until we next meet, sayonara!

We definitely did. Once the deal was made, the game became absolutely immaterial in 90% of cases and anything north of about £10,000 was going to drastically improve someone's situation for a crucial period of time. The American version actually nailed this aspect, the game wasn't played any further bar the actual opening of their case.

I have had half a mind to re-commentate on some episodes with almost 15 years having passed and the shift in financial attitudes that came about with Labour losing power and the vertical drop in optimism and rocketing rise in economic instability. 2006 games vs 2008 games are already language barriers, the difference between 2006 and nowadays is utterly drastic. If anyone out there is interested in re-commentary/reflection, I'll do it. A lot of the show has aged, not necessarily badly but when we think of 'controversial' or 'iconic' games, in some cases you find yourself baffled at why these became talking points in the first place. They reflect the times massively, both within the show's history and the real world. And many of the contestants are quite bloody unsympathetic! Trevor's 1p game is still remembered as one of the most gripping and devastating 'sliding door' defeats in the entire run... but he was a middle class, privileged toolbox who probably hadn't been humbled before in his entire life, emphatically stating that he was a 'blue'. The shocking offers weren't unwarranted, Glenn Hugill is from County Durham, a fiercely Labour constituency. He wanted him to fail more than we could have realised.


Hmm, Skype revival, yeah that's just awful sounding. Nothing would ever be the same, as indeed things aren't online. Just wait until you can do it properly. Glad this didn't happen in 2006 because it would killed DOND off in its absolute peak and we'd be left mourning the brightly burned show and ''where it could have gone'' quite like how we lament James Dean and Buddy Holly. Small mercies.

I wonder why the 2008 episodes have been released officially? The lazy and uncommitted conspirator that I am would suggest that this was just beyond the show's popular era but not where it'd devolved and shapeshifted into something unfamiliar so it's providing a 'new' experience for people who casually watched the show in 2006, almost like alternate history episodes. To me, it's amazing. Apart from the iconic moments and episodes, I'm very unfamiliar with 2008 so it's genuinely like watching 'new' old-skool episodes. The graphics are the same as 2006, Noel looks normal, advert breaks during the 2nd and 4th rounds and the most daring gimmick was the occasional Banker's Gamble.

Well, thanks for taking the time to write that post and, yeah, f*ck it, re-commentaries if you want them.

I've been watching some of the Season 1 episodes recently uploaded to YouTube and it certainly felt very foreign in comparison to the show's later years. The 2006 games definitely had a much more upbeat and laid back atmosphere, and at the time, expecting the show to fall into it's dark, grim "I'm broke, i'm in debt, my dad just died and i can barely feed myself" tone which it did a couple of years later, would be like 2017 expecting this year's COVID-19 crisis.

When i think of 2006 on DoND, one of the first players i think of is Khanny - EASILY one of the calmest players during the show's run. It's not very often someone comes along who gambles away nearly £50,000 and loses most of it and just says "Meh, whatever, next box please!". Of course one of the most infamous power 5 level wins i remember during the show's run was Patrick from March 2007, who won £50,000, yet the reaction to him underselling the £250k (even though he'd still won a massive amount) was like a funeral, with suicidal faces and even tears on the wings, especially Di, who reacted like she just watched her best friend get fatally shot!!

While I'm at it, i've FINALLY gotten around to watching Janelle's game. Dare i say this but....I actually didn't think Janelle was that bad, sure she did seem moody at times, but i felt she came across as more awkward and uncomfortable rather than obnoxious or insufferable (I definitely liked Janelle a lot more than say Vaughan, who frankly deserved a right thumping for his arrogance....). She certainly didn't seem like the moping mess people were making her out to be, and there were some, perhaps unintentionally, funny moments during her game!

For me, DoND died in 2010 after Ramesh's game (April that year). The atmosphere in the studio was noticeably getting flatter as the year progressed. The run of unlucky games leading up to the summer break didn't help, and players were noticeably getting more and more cautious during the second half of the year. Once the show became 1 hour long at the start of 2011, i couldn't watch the show anymore with it becoming so drawn out, and it hardly felt like a coincidence that most players were super-cautious from that point on (Even in 2008 during the fallout from £22,500 Richard's game in 2008, it would be utterly ABSURD to think that games like £8k Sherilyn and £10k Iris would ever happen)

By 2013, the show had hit rock bottom with 95% of players being so cautious that most of them were actually terrified of playing beyond 8-box, it didn't matter how strong or weak the board was and given that the player's attitudes were so fixed on "I need money NOW!" rather than playing the game statistically, the stingyness of the offers at that particular time was deliberately being ignored. Obviously box 23 being introduced at the start of 2014 made a difference in ultimately encouraging players to go further into the game, knowing they had a chance to recover £10,000 if they played on and it went terribly wrong, but this ultimately destroyed the show's original principle in favour of "play to the end with a chance to win £10,000 at no risk at all if you win hardly anything in your game"

I think by 2011, this forum was the only thing really keeping me interested in the show anymore. I officially joined the forum in April 2012, which was during the forum's brief resurgence in the early 2010s, mostly due to pop-culture and nostalgia-related topics coming up on here.

EDIT: I know i broke my promise of saying my last topic would be my last post i'd ever put on here, but i do feel inclined to post on this thread

This was a post from the Today's Show thread for Julie - 05/05/2008



The clutch of sequential 2008 uploads on Amazon Prime just about reaches Julie's game. I wasn't going to subscribe (even for free) but had to bite when I saw Julie's game was included. The writer of the post, JamesC, is on the money here. Nobody else picked it up at the time, but the quote has stuck with me and I was curious to see Noel's attitude. And g'lord, what the f*ck happened to him that day?? Something personal that had a big effect on his mood (maybe a further Lloyds bank shafting? Be interested to see the chronology of his dealings with them and see if a key date synced up with the time of Julie's recording), but he's not even being subtle. He's projecting terribly. His face wears a scowl, he's barely interested, he's predisposed to find the charmingly inoffensive Julie irritating and cursed - and he even mouths ''f*ck'' under his breath when Julie takes a call from The Banker. As I type this, I'm only 10 minutes in - paused it right after his f-bomb. Sucked to be Julie.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/c ... 56952.html

Almost on the money. Julie's game was recorded 6th Feb '08 and no way this shady February 2008 meeting between Edmondo and 'businessmen', the bud of a later collapsed venture, was coincidental in providing a detrimental effect on his mood during the recording (and I'll be watching the surrounding episodes too). Possibly caused friction to those closest. Sorry for seeming obsessed but I couldn't believe how ars*y he appeared on Julie's game and was a real mask slip in his, albeit zealous, professionalism in the studio.

Even Glenn Hugill/the crew were well aware of it, there's a segment where Noel is 'jokingly' ordered to leave the studio and he seems quite genuinely motivated in doing so (and mutters another barely audible but clearly discernible f-bomb - if you find yourself whispering expletives at work often you'll recognise that exact 'ticcy' sound)

So, in the nearly two years since I wrote this, I've been reading through all the old commentary threads on a day-by-day basis roughly ten years to the day. I'm currently in mid-June 2012 and the final few games before Mark's tempo ban. I'll probably go as far as the end of 2013 before stopping; I don't want to carry on into 2014 and Box 23 and my decent into OCD, so I'll probably rewind a bit when I get that far.

But, having read through all the old threads, and been reminded on how good the dynamic on the wings always was, even during the 'later' years (2013 onwards), I've come to a sad conclusion: Deal in its original format would never work nowadays.

I hate to be cynical (that's KP's job!), but society had become a lot more split and polarised since Deal came off the air over certain political issues I'd rather not mention; you just couldn't have a 22+ group of people from all walks of life living and playing the game together nowadays. The moment one of them voiced an opinion that differed from that of others in the group, they'd all split up into an England's Golden Generation-style clique, of which there'd be several, and you'd have wingers actively routing against others. The show's dynamic of everyone routing for everyone else would sadly be a thing of the past.

Mind you, I was skeptical about whether The Weakest Link would work in today's society, and, apart from the players clearly not wanting to vote anyone off and being too apologetic when voting (and Romesh overdoing the "who thinks" jokes!), I thought the new series was pretty good. So, who knows?

Of course, the other interesting thing about DoND in a culture war context is how vocal Noel got on one side of it, even before it intensified to the extent it has now - and even then it was somewhat curious that such a socially conservative host would preside over easily the most casually inclusive game show on British TV ever to that point and seemed entirely tolerant on the surface of who the contestants were. (What they did, that was sometimes another story...)

Would a 2020s revival be able to work? The casting would be a massive challenge, certainly. Romesh-era Link may well be a template if they're getting players genuinely apologetic in voting off each other in pandemic-era divided Britain...

I can think of little else to offer but a rueful nod and a grunt of agreement at this particular juncture. The ability to get on with one another, regardless of political differences, is no longer part of our British psyche, and as a collective we are far worse off for it.

The interesting thing I found the most is when it went live. I did not expect that to happen.

Welcome back Mark!

I am still around.