Jay tells Darren he needs to think about how he would feel now if he plays on and things don't go his way.

Darren says

NO DEAL

Round 6 - Final box

1 - £50,000 Daniel

Banker time with £100 and £500 remaining

Noooooooo!!!

The gamble didn't pay off says Noel. The Banker wishes everyone a merry Christmas!! He asks if Darren would like the chance to win the holiday, and Darren says he would, but the Banker says 'Tough! You shouldn't have taken out the £50,000'!!

Banker's offer:

£199

Darren says

NO DEAL

The Banker calls back and says he feels bad now, and says that Darren can have a chance to win the holiday if he finds a red in his box!

Noel opens box 8 and reveals £500

Box 20 with Ant contains the £100

Darren says the whole experience has been great.

Horrible luck to start the Christmas shows. A victim of not getting a decent enough offer at 8-box and then having bad luck in the next 2 rounds.

Well, that wasn't a good way to start the festive week...we can only hope for much better tomorrow

How much better would today's game have been yesterday, let alone vice versa? A game to remind everyone of how often resetting the ADP to 5-box creates all manner of problems.

Yes I did feel a bit of a twit with a flashing Christmas tree on my head

For tomorrow's show they asked us to wear the opposite to what we wore today so I got the santa hat

Very apt set design for this year given the real time lousy weather at the moment

But at least this year they have kept it simple and the contestants are not under several layers of makeup

So kudos to the set designers

Not a good game though to start off the Xmas specials, unavoidable bad luck in the latter half of the game

.....and it's games like that which could justify what Danielle did yesterday (though she was offered more at 8-box on a worse board). Very frustrating indeed!!

Agree James. If I were in the wings, I would be thinking if that's how the banker is going to play it, then if I'm next, I'll be off at the first decent offer and screw all this snowman/giftbox nonsense. I was quite shocked at how poor the offers were when he went one at a time from 5 box.

I agree with Richie - it's good that the producers have decided to keep it simple and sensible as regards the set and costumes for these specials.

It's certainly a refreshing change from the silliness of Love Week, Easter, the Banker's Birthday and Hallowe'en.

But for heaven's sake, do they have to be so UNORIGINAL as regards the 5-box twist? I apologise if I'm sounding miserable here, but an offer after every box if it goes good, and the Banker looking inside the player's box if it goes bad, is getting a bit on the tiresome side now IMHO.

It seems they're very much in favour of offers after every box, though, if two of the snowmen can contain Santa. And they really have taken a liking to giving away holidays, haven't they?

As for today's game - well, once again, an all-blue opening round turned out to be a false dawn.

But what on earth possessed the Banker to offer a chocolate log??!?! Did he have a bit too much wine beforehand?!

And Darren's luck would have been no different had he found the Scrooge, assuming he turned down the subsequent offer... and to top it all off, no attempt at forcing a feel-good ending, which was quite surprising...

yes I thought was wierd and a bit insulting. A player gets an all blue round and the bankder (producer) refused to give an offer. Not the first 'no offer' and it must be in the t&c's but its not cricket is it. On the opening round i would have said a realistic offer would have been 10k, but ive seen higher opening offers with worse boards.

Oh well, after reading the commentary above I didn't bother to watch the rest of the show.

As someone mentioned the holiday, I think the 'week in lanzarote' or 'benidorm' are a bit of a gimmick. May as well say two weeks in bognor or give me the option of an extra £500 to the offer.

I can't think of another way of doing a twist and the twist does work (even if it does make every offer before 5-box redundant).

With regards the hats, I didn't see the xmas tree ones where I was sitting, but I would've gamely worn one if I did (and then wished I hadn't... ). However, being the filming dates guru, I knew they'd be xmas shows so brought along a santa hat - glad I did as the ones supplied were slightly small (for my head anyway! ) and it meant there were more to go around! On another note, I think there was more snow on the floor as it gets closer to Christmas... (hope that's not a massive spoiler for everyone).

Anyway, not a great start of course, the gifts and the 5-box twist were getting in the way of a decent offer at 8-box, the banker keen to adopt his Scrooge persona from the outset.

My thought was that if the Banker wasn't prepared to offer cash why not the swap? But i suppose with the swap guaranteed in a Scrooge situation at 5 box that might not be an option for these specials
It was an odd game, I still maintain the all blue opening round is a poisoned chalice but the Banker today seemed especially antagonistic. It's the sort of attitude he normally reserves for players who have been vocally critical of his offers during their time on the wings and i hadn't thought Darren did that. All in all it was combination of poor offers and bad luck with the boxes leading to a blue win
Interestingly simple set & costume design this year, though 22 Santa suits does make you wonder if the costume dept used up all their budget for the year with the earlier specials