22 People there not played. Only 1 can play. So what are they going to do with the other 21?

Unless they use audience members to open a few boxes for the last 21 shows or get players to open more than one box or use models. (Like DOND USA!)

I am bored and thought about this too much!

Players from the Hall Of Fame might open them.

They might just give the remaining 21 contestants £1,000 each.

If they got contestants to open the boxes, it might get a bit tricky when there's only one contestant left and it's a 97 year old woman in a wheelchair.

I think the best way to do it is use audience members, but have them wear special 'Audience member' jackets so people know that they're not technically contestants.

At the end of the last show, hopefully a mega-money one, Noel would turn to the camera and give a heartfelt speech:
"Its an overworked expression when people say its the end of an era, but for Channel 4, Endemol, for me and possibly you, it really is the end of an era. After (whatever many shows), goodbye...but we couldn't go without revealing the greatest mystery of them all. Let's find out who The Banker is!"

And The Banker walks into the studio, wearing a suit and a bag over his head with an '?' sign on it. Noel takes off the mask...only to reveal Freddie Starr under it, who duly covers him in gunge as everyone cheers and the credits roll.

http://www.nascr.net/~rgwill3/Noel.rm

(A bit of a dodgy link but youll get the idea, you have to exit the registration screen if it comes up)

They could make it more entertaining by having the contestant play his or her game in the normal way, but then whatever they win, that exact amount is won by each of the other contestants, whether it be £250, £9,800, £50,000 or whatever. The contestant in the crazy chair would have the ultimate decision on if and when to deal, but it would make the advice from the east and west wings very interesting indeed, and I wonder whether the hugs would be guaranteed at the end for the contestant from the rest of the players if it all went wrong! The disaster scenario for the banker and Endemol is that they have to fork out £250,000 22 times, but the chances of that are very unlikely given the fact that we haven't had many jackpot winners, but even if they did, Endemol are a strong international force, they are rolling in it actually, and could probably afford to give out a few million!

I think the £250,000 will appear on the table, or there could be a special phone in competition where you could win up to 50K. Who knows?

They almost seem to be doing that on a weekly basis! (Well, not quite weekly, but they do keep randomly upping the money available.)

Maybe it might be a celebrity version where a celebrity will play and the 21 greatest players voted by the public will open the box.

The highest would be £1 million and all money goes to charity.

Haha, they probably won't even do anything special. Just keep the last 22 players there opening boxes even after they've played...

Then whoever would have been originally scheduled to replace the last ever player would be a bit piss ed off.

They'll probably time it so they have just enough contestants.

Maybe the remaining 21 all take home the value of the boxes they have in the last game? No, that would be unfair. Maybe have them pick balls out of a bag with the 22 values on, but the balls get replaced after every pick to ensure fairness? But even then, there's a 50:50 chance of going with less than a grand!

Maybe they should get the likes of Lynn, Mark, Anita, Rachel, Haleem, Oli etc there to open boxes, as they'd have missed out on that experience big time when they were originally there!

Maybe in the last 22 shows, nobody replaces the replacees (is that what they are called?) and they just get Noel to open all the boxes! Supply him with some rollerskates and a helmet to help him along, and off he goes!

They could even turn the studio into a skatepark and have lots of ramps and halfpipes! Yes! Then Noel gets points for every trick he does, e.g.
5 points for a 180-degree turn, 4 points for somersaulting over the west wing, 3 points for skating to the box in the given time, etc etc. Then on the final day they add up all his points and say he got 48 points, The Banker raises the final offer up by 48%!!! That's a brillant idea, I'm writing to Endemol...

"Departees" is probably a better term for "replacees".

It will never end as it would cause a time paradox. There will be a virtual Noel talking to the virtual banker via telepathy. The prize money will be 100,000,000,000 euros and a guaranteed place in a kryogenic chamber. The programme will broadcast live from the earth's core and contestants will sit on a replica of the Jim'll Fix chair (renamed The Banker'll Fix It's chair).......either that or one of the other ideas mentioned prior to this posting