£75,000 winner denied

Major regret for him, forever.

Obviously there is no way he would have been extremely very brave like Dori was.

Don't think he gives a f, mate

This is one of the mysteries of this banker. The C4 banker(s) loved doubling, halving, tripling, etc. which made the offers quite neat.

I assume the new banker's trying to make it look like the offers are very specifically calculated? Hence the £xx,010, £xx,370, etc. I suppose it also means it's unlikely that more than one contestant will deal for the same amount.

I suppose it wasn’t a cautious deal but even on the wings Leon seemed like a cautious player and if you’re chosen on the day you do have a large red that cautiousness in you is gonna cost you.

Congratulations Leon, £9k is pretty good

'You know, it's times like this when you really feel like swearing...'
- Noel Edmonds, 2006

If it weren't for 3 of the top 4 going he may have given it one more round. It's an understandable deal.

A sensible decision with an unfortunate proveout. But at the end of the day 9k is still a great sum of money and it would've been a big risk to go on. Hopefully Leon and his family enjoy the money.

Some general thoughts after 50-odd shows of the Mulhern Era...

Can't say I'm really taking to long-term Deal with Mulhern... he's grating on me now with his repetitive, uninspiring style, and often seems to speak more than the contestant. It makes you appreciate how much talent Noel had in putting the player at ease, wringing out the tension, knowing when to shut up, personalising the game to the player etc. Mulhern is talentless in most of these skills, sadly, and not many contestant games are going to be memorable years down the line, because they're just stale and not different enough from each other...

The 'Banker' is plainly not trying to buy the box as cheaply as possible, the central principle of the show, either with his "Hope-this-collapses" pathetic and samey early offers, or his outlandish above-mean final offers, and the odd amounts are just annoying rather than part of any clever strategy. He also, much like Mulhern, doesn't seem to say anything original, unexpected or spontaneous, and there's basically no character for him, e.g. he doesn't enjoy claret or have a butler called Pennywise or anything. Maybe he is a soulless computer, as no one has spoken to him yet, or feels inclined to.Few games will majorly crash, as the early offers have too flat a trajectory, and the later offers seem to be doing everything in his power to stop the player leaving with a blue, and most wins seem to be in a narrower range generally.

Hopefully it can improve and the banker can develop some nuance to offers that isn't just adding a random figure to the end of them, but I won't hold my breath...

He just... follows the script. He will not ever deviate from established phrases he's already said (so just repeats himself all the time as he's concluded that ''this works''), or just says as he is told to say. Can you imagine Edmonds ever allowing this to happen?

And yeah, even compulsive games like Dori, Monz annnd Myles (in the bad sense) just feel distant now. They should have been far bigger 'events'. I think Donna played the day after Myles, almost removed every blue before 11-box, yet it was just given the ''oh wow, that's a nice board, not many blues left the Banker will not be pleased '' treatment, like it was nothing out of the ordinary.



Or it's another one of those things that just ''doesn't happen in this version'', ALA the swap, where it's never even referred to. The omerta. F-ing weird, honestly. The whole thing is.

I still enjoy the show, but I'd enjoy it much more if they addressed some of the things you mention here.

The first two offers being basically the same every game is very boring, and it's especially annoying when they get an opening offer of £1,550 or whatever it may be then say 'That's a really good offer' when it really, really isn't. That's what I liked about Sam Thompson's game - he called the offer disgraceful and immediately asked for the question. Very much saying what we were all thinking...

And I get the banker getting more generous as it goes along for dramatic tension and to subtly encourage people to play on for longer, but why does he consistently throw the calculator out of the window at 2-box?

Mulhern is inoffensive as a host but I don't mind that. It lets the game speak for itself which is what I like best.

And while I disagree about there not being standout shows, the fact that nearly every game goes to at least 5-box now, and the lion's share to at least 3-box, combined with the lack of early generosity as already mentioned, means you could tune in just for the last 15 minutes and in all probability not miss much.