After the surprise of a brief charity plug (for the Dutch arm of Oxfam, specifically), it's time for the penultimate episode of 2010. And some acrobats dancing behind Linda as she walks on, dressed in festive garb. Yes, it's the "Santa Claus evening", and there's a bunch of presents thrown on the set for some reason.

Linda confirms that each block has "50 contestants and their partners", which is what I suspected. Only one from each block goes through, of course, and from there they are whittled down to two middle-aged men, making me appreciate the diversity of the UK contestant pool again. As the clock goes, slowly, Linda reminds us it stopped at €22,000 a couple of weeks ago. SOMEONE STOPS AT €26,300! I wouldn't have. Old Faithful works again? I don't think there was much more to go, having said that... it was set to stop at... €31,000! I'd have gone all the way there.

The finalist, a balding, bespectacled, slender man in a pink patterned shirt, is Marc. That spelling, I think. (skips awful bit about the bell). Marc chooses to take CASE 6 to the table, and after everyone in one of the blocks wins a hotel trip (2611, Delft) and one of them wins €10,000 (Niels Orij - missing out was Willy Mulder-Hulvaart, what a name that is!), we get to the best bit!

Marc is from Utrecht, and I think he said he works in medicine. He's single, apparently; Linda asks him about his "perfect partner". With him in the audience is... a slightly older female, might be a sister... oh wait, that's the bell-ringer. Anyway, he says he wants a Porsche. Hello, Corinne!

Away we go. "You run the show."

ROUND 1
19 - €2,500,000! Not how to start. "That is... not a good start," says Linda, or words to that effect. Dumbfounded pause was there, definitely.
22 - €0.20. Second highest followed by second lowest!
26 - €5.
10 - €300,000. "Whee."
1 - €500.
14 - €5,000,000!

Linda can't look. Nor can the dressed-up acrobats/actors/whatever.

I can't remember a start this bad.

OFFER €12,000

"It's a low opening offer, but it's low because you took out the two highest." If I translated that correctly. NO DEAL, obviously.

We're still playing for a million.

ROUND 2
24 - €200,000. No longer disposable.
9 - €2,500.
12 - €1. More like it. Still no bell...
2 - €5,000. That'll do. Now we get a bell reminder... she suggested she was going to ring it only when her number came up. It's number 17, which would be my choice of number too! Will Marc pick it? "Number 15". No. Laughter. Now the bell rings...
15 - €50! Laughter. It's the second-highest amount anyone has won from the bell in four attempts, believe it or not.

OFFER €42,000

We basically have a good US game at this point, with the top four from their board in tow, plus a €10k-€100k fallback block. Except it's in euro. NO DEAL.

Four huge amounts, four cases to open. Linda reminds us of Marc's ambition to win a sports car.

ROUND 3
3 - €400,000! There goes one...
11 - €50,000. "It's OK."
13 - €0.01! That's that one out the way.
23 - €10!

Realistically, you couldn't have expected a round much better than that. Three huge amounts, three cases to open, and only one from the five in the top right went as well...



Mean is a little over €200k. Offer will be the sort of money that buys a sports car, maybe €70k. Would need rather more to get me out...

OFFER €75,000

It's a little more. Gestures from the costumed characters. Linda points out how that would get him the sports car, talks through some of the permutations, and it's a NO DEAL.

ROUND 4
25 - €25,000. "It's not €0.50, but €25,000 is excellent."
5 - €100! Linda cranks the enthusiasm up a notch with that...
After the break... and the previous offers graphic which shows how much this game started badly...
21 - €500,000! "That is unlucky."

Still, two huge amounts, two to open, and two backups of precisely 10% of aforementioned huge amounts. I've seen worse. Linda wonders if it'll be a six-figure offer...

OFFER €111,000

It is, and I think that's just about enough. Mixed gestures from all concerned as to what he should do. He's made his mind up, he tells Linda as much... DEAL!

Nobody's made it to the final six in live play this series!!

PROVEOUT
4 - €75,000...
16 - €0.50! Offer would have gone up some way, closer to €200,000. Linda says as much, but then, I think, told him not to have regrets.
17 - €1,000,000! So if he'd chosen that earlier, the bell-ringer would have won €50,000, as she was waiting for that one to go! I'm glad that didn't happen, cheering the million euro would have been awful, especially in round 2.
18 - €1,000. Still the €750k in tow, so we'd be back towards the two-ton mark offer-wise, especially with €100k backup...
20 - €100,000. Well, not now... might just have been a new peak offer...
8 - €10,000!

€20 vs €750,000 finish. "This is a disaster", says Linda - jokingly, I hasten to add. Noel would have said it with something approaching earnestness.

7 had €20! Marc's case 6 had €750,000. I think that's the first time that amount has come to the table since its introduction (in place of €7,500) four years ago. Unfortunate proveout, but he's got his sports car and then some.