Channel 4 - Deal or No Deal being scrapped

dublinman1990

Channel 4 are not renewing the studio deal of DOND with Noel Edmonds as it will instead show the remaining studio episodes & go on a farewell tour in different locations around the UK. The current set for the show has already closed down which means no more studio episodes will be filmed.

The show is due to finish by the end of this year according to the press release.

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/deal-or-no-deal-goes-on-tour-as-c4-says-farewell-to-the-dream-factory

Noel has apparently three different shows lined up with Channel 4 when DOND is finished for good so his career with them is not finished yet.

Go Harvey Go

Not surprised that DOND is finally ending.

IMHO, the last truly good year for the show was 2011, and it's been all downhill since then. Just like with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, changes were made in order to arrest falling viewing figures - extending the episodes from 45 to 60 minutes, Box 23, the offer button. And, just like with WWTBAM, these changes didn't really work.

The general response when Paddy Roberts became the first male quarter-millionaire on 12 August 2013 was "meh", as it was six months later when Roop Singh became the first jackpot winner over the age of 25 and then turned down the chance to double his winnings via the aforementioned Box 23. Not many people were excited, either, about couples playing the game (billed as Double Trouble) or Noel trying it out for himself (on 18 September 2015, as part of the show's 10th anniversary celebrations). And the ideas of the Ha'penny Certificate and the Pilgrims of the Day were never going to catch on as much as those of the 1p Barge, the Curse of the Newbie and £26,000 being "the Governor".

Like many other people, I was a die-hard fan of DOND during its first few years - even after Laura Pearce became the first quarter-millionaire on 7 January 2007. Then university life forced me to reduce my commitments, and by the time I graduated (in September 2012), the show was pretty much beginning its long, slow terminal decline.

Still, eleven years isn't a bad innings for a 21st-century game show. And I'll always have good memories from the time when I was a die-hard fan - including Nick Bain establishing the 1p Club (3 January 2006), Morris Simpson turning down £101k on a £20k/£250k final two (6 May 2006), Graeme Garioch dealing for that amount after turning down £41k with only the £250k higher (4 May 2007), Tax-Free Harry (22 October 2006), Farmer Clive (4 January 2008), and of course, the aforementioned Laura Pearce (below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dscWG6so5Mc

I will, however, close by saying this: DOND was considered by many to be a replacement for Fifteen-to-One, and it has now effectively been replaced by Fifteen-to-One. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

Mr.Nice Guy

It outstayed its welcome. I watched it a lot in the first few years but it got increasingly outlandish with the gimmickry and all these new features. It was flogging a dead horse.

Episodes that stand out in my mind include the elderly lady who accidentally said 'No Deal' when she meant 'Deal' and the banker then called back to allow her to say 'Deal' at which point she changed her mind on the basis she felt it was fate that she had said 'No Deal' - she then had a great next round.

Also that young blonde lady who dealt for a big sum but then it turned out that she could have won a quarter of a million; then she breaks down and starts blaming her boyfriend who had suggested she deal!

A lot of it was nonsense though when you look back at it. 'I have a good feeling about this box, Noel' and 'I want everyone to chant "blue" at the start of the round'. :rolleyes:

Welsh Megaman

I'll miss those tricky general knowledge questions that require skill and intelligence to answer.

Oh wait...

Go Harvey Go

Welsh Megaman wrote: »

I'll miss those tricky general knowledge questions that require skill and intelligence to answer.

Oh wait...

Yes, there was just one very simple four-word question.

In a way, DOND was a bit like Going for Gold and Bullseye - it was a great game show, but it could also be justifiably considered a bit rubbish (although that helped to make it great).

That said, I do agree with Mr Nice Guy - it went on beyond its ask-by date, whereas Henry Kelly's and Jim Bowen's shows pretty much ended at their natural conclusions.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Quite honestly it was one of the worst Televisions shows ever created.

Just people opening boxes would be bad enough but some of the people on it apparently worked out a system to doing it and the producers seemed to want to try and convince people that there was anything other than dumb luck to it.

The gob****es offering encouragement to people they don't know was another pile of bollocks attached to the show.

Zaph

I have to agree, it was a guessing game made out to be something far more profound. How they could knock 3,000 episodes out of something so banal is actually quite an achievement.

Go Harvey Go

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Quite honestly it was one of the worst Televisions shows ever created.

Just people opening boxes would be bad enough but some of the people on it apparently worked out a system to doing it and the producers seemed to want to try and convince people that there was anything other than dumb luck to it.

The gob****es offering encouragement to people they don't know was another pile of bollocks attached to the show.

Language!

If you think DOND was one of the worst TV shows ever created... then you haven't seen Golden Balls. This was also a game of chance - but, unlike DOND, it involved lying, shouting and back-stabbing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Uos2fzIJ0

Go Harvey Go

Zaph wrote: »

I have to agree, it was a guessing game made out to be something far more profound. How they could knock 3,000 episodes out of something so banal is actually quite an achievement.

You have to remember that it did a lot of things that no game show had done before - especially offering as much as £250,000 in daytime.

Just as no game show had offered anywhere near £1,000,000 before Millionaire came along.

Plus it made Noel big and popular again - he'd been quiet for some years beforehand, following his much-publicised fall-out with the BBC.

I don't think anyone can disagree, though, that it continued beyond the end of its shelf life. By 2011, afternoon viewers were becoming more and more interested in Pointless and the Chase, and there just wasn't the same excitement for big-prize game shows as there had been a few years earlier.

bobbyss

Yeah. I found it tired and stale and boring by the end.

Vic_08

Go Harvey Go wrote: »

I will, however, close by saying this: DOND was considered by many to be a replacement for Fifteen-to-One, and it has now effectively been replaced by Fifteen-to-One. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

Like hell it was. It was 15-1 for the lobotomised maybe. That show required considerable knowledge and quick thinking to win, Deal was no more than random luck wrapped in bullshyt pseudo-mysticism egged on by a world class fukwit.

B.A._Baracus

Can't say I was a fan of the show myself but it was popular and just like everything else it had it's run.

Mr.Nice Guy

One thing that always baffled me was how people would apologize when they opened their box to reveal the 1p - as if they were to blame for that. :pac:

Skid X

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

One thing that always baffled me was how people would apologize when they opened their box to reveal the 1p - as if they were to blame for that. :pac:

That nonsense eventually made it unwatchable for me.

Noel seemed to genuinely believe there were some kind of mystical powers bollix controlling what numbers were in the boxes.

"Mary - open your box AND IT MUST NOT BE A RED", as if Mary could do anything to change the number she randomly selected that morning.

A bit of fun, and a show you could very easily sucked into - but one that long overstayed its welcome.

learn_more

I hope I never meet anyone like your typical dond contestant in real life. Same goes for Edmonds.

tvnutz

I remember reading an article about this show, bunch of weirdos involved, with Edmonds being the head weirdo...it was almost like a cult with some of the $hite they were coming out with

BorneTobyWilde

WHat I found strange was time it was on. Why the fuccck would you have it on in the middle of a week day.
I've haven't seen it in years. Maybe if it was on at 8pm someone might actually watch.

learn_more

Noel Edmonds is a bit of a David Icke

pauliebdub

I found it very enjoyable at the beginning but the novelty wore off after a few years. there was too much touchy feely stuff, sob stories, weeping over the contents of a box, hand holding contestants, fancy dress silliness, cautious players and too much emphasis being placed on fate and on the significance of 1p . Amazed that it lasted for so long.

pauliebdub

Vic_08 wrote: »

Like hell it was. It was 15-1 for the lobotomised maybe. That show required considerable knowledge and quick thinking to win, Deal was no more than random luck wrapped in bullshyt pseudo-mysticism egged on by a world class fukwit.

It did replace 15 to 1 in its original timeslot before Countdown when it first aired.

pauliebdub

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

The gob****es offering encouragement to people they don't know was another pile of bollocks attached to the show.

The contestants do get to know each other as they stay together while appearing on the show, each contestant appears on 20ish shows opening boxes before it's their turn to play.

ixoy

Did anyone ever just go through the boxes in numerical order:

Contestant: "Box One."
Noel: "That's £200. So Contest is a statistical analyst - what sort of game will you be playing today?".
Contestant: "One based on a knowledge of probability. Box Two"
Noel: "Oh well done! That's 50p! Well done!"
Contestant: "I merely picked a box of whose content I had no control of. Box Three"
Noel: "You don't want to try a lucky system? Maybe ask the audience? What box should he pick audience?"
[Audience roars nonsense]
Contestant: Barring a predetermined system, or insider knowledge, they have no useful knowledge to impart. Box Three.
Noel: Okay, sounds like a strategy! £1000!
Contestant: Box Four..
Noel: [getting desperate] You can't just go in order can you? How about a different number? Maybe your cat's birthday or the number of pigs you saw in a pet farm as a kid? What about the date you first ate a Twix bar?
Contestant: No Noel, that is illogical. The progressive set of normal numbers will suffice. Box Four."

I mean surely somebody wanted to play the game like that?

Toto Wolfcastle

tvnutz wrote: »

I remember reading an article about this show, bunch of weirdos involved, with Edmonds being the head weirdo...it was almost like a cult with some of the $hite they were coming out with

I read an article like that too. Probably the same one. Behind the scenes it was all mind games with the contestants. I actually tried to find that article last night but I had no luck.

Go Harvey Go

ixoy wrote: »

Did anyone ever just go through the boxes in numerical order:

Contestant: "Box One."
Noel: "That's £200. So Contest is a statistical analyst - what sort of game will you be playing today?".
Contestant: "One based on a knowledge of probability. Box Two"
Noel: "Oh well done! That's 50p! Well done!"
Contestant: "I merely picked a box of whose content I had no control of. Box Three"
Noel: "You don't want to try a lucky system? Maybe ask the audience? What box should he pick audience?"
[Audience roars nonsense]
Contestant: Barring a predetermined system, or insider knowledge, they have no useful knowledge to impart. Box Three.
Noel: Okay, sounds like a strategy! £1000!
Contestant: Box Four..
Noel: [getting desperate] You can't just go in order can you? How about a different number? Maybe your cat's birthday or the number of pigs you saw in a pet farm as a kid? What about the date you first ate a Twix bar?
Contestant: No Noel, that is illogical. The progressive set of normal numbers will suffice. Box Four."

I mean surely somebody wanted to play the game like that?

AFAIK, there were no rules as regards the order in which the contestant chose the boxes.

But, for whatever reason, no-one chose them in numerical order - one of the few things that never happened on the show despite being perfectly plausible.

No-one dealt at the first offer, either - although one contestant did deal at the second offer (Josh Flannery on 8 October 2012).

Vic_08

Toto Wolfcastle wrote: »

I read an article like that too. Probably the same one. Behind the scenes it was all mind games with the contestants. I actually tried to find that article last night but I had no luck.

You are not Imagining it, I remember that story as well. Stuck in my mind as Edmonds is an even bigger twat than I had previously thought.

ixoy wrote: »

Did anyone ever just go through the boxes in numerical order:

Contestant: "Box One."
Noel: "That's £200. So Contest is a statistical analyst - what sort of game will you be playing today?".
Contestant: "One based on a knowledge of probability. Box Two"
Noel: "Oh well done! That's 50p! Well done!"
Contestant: "I merely picked a box of whose content I had no control of. Box Three"
Noel: "You don't want to try a lucky system? Maybe ask the audience? What box should he pick audience?"
[Audience roars nonsense]
Contestant: Barring a predetermined system, or insider knowledge, they have no useful knowledge to impart. Box Three.
Noel: Okay, sounds like a strategy! £1000!
Contestant: Box Four..
Noel: [getting desperate] You can't just go in order can you? How about a different number? Maybe your cat's birthday or the number of pigs you saw in a pet farm as a kid? What about the date you first ate a Twix bar?
Contestant: No Noel, that is illogical. The progressive set of normal numbers will suffice. Box Four."

I mean surely somebody wanted to play the game like that?

Would have loved to do that, puncture the BS completely.

From what was written if anyone had gone on intending to do that and not play along with Noel's nonsense they would have had to hidden their intentions until the filming, apparently he took against anybody that didn't play along.

Howard the Duck

Heard this referred to as the guessy guessy box game and i think that sums it up perfectly.

The way they used to almost have a go at people for picking the wrong box was laughable, Or when the person opening the box was convinced they knew if it was a low or high price box was always funny too, they'd apologise as well.

Like pigeons spinning around to get a treat.

iseegirls

I think moving to an hour really killed it, and dragged the arse out of it really.
It was fun at the start and was really enjoyable.

But like anything big that comes to Channel 4 - they over dilute the whole series. It went on 6 days a week for a long time, there was prime time episodes, too much messing about with dressing up and changing of the game, and a lack of a break every year - a summer break would have given it a rest every year at the start.

It did get amazing ratings at the start, when you compare it to the daytime ratings that C4 get today. Also, have to remember back 10 years ago that BBC1 still showed CBBC, and maybe CITV was still on, so there wasn't as much competition as there is now. But still C4 should have moved with the times. When they dropped Big Brother, they should have done the same to this.

Go Harvey Go

iseegirls wrote: »

But like anything big that comes to Channel 4 - they over dilute the whole series. It went on 6 days a week for a long time, there was prime time episodes, too much messing about with dressing up and changing of the game, and a lack of a break every year - a summer break would have given it a rest every year at the start.

The show did have a summer break at first, but C4 decided to ditch this in 2012 - again, just as the show was pretty much beginning its descent into oblivion.

It did get amazing ratings at the start, when you compare it to the daytime ratings that C4 get today. Also, have to remember back 10 years ago that BBC1 still showed CBBC, and maybe CITV was still on, so there wasn't as much competition as there is now. But still C4 should have moved with the times. When they dropped Big Brother, they should have done the same to this.

Before Laura Pearce's £250k win in January '07, the show was getting as many as four million viewers. And that's not an exaggeration.

By 2012, however, it was struggling to even get one million, and to break into C4's weekly top 30. By then, of course, Xander, Richard, Bradders, the Beast, the Dark Destroyer, the Governess and the Sinnerman had become the talk of weekday afternoons, with Ben Shephard and his coin-pushing machine soon to follow...

maudgonner

Toto Wolfcastle wrote: »

I read an article like that too. Probably the same one. Behind the scenes it was all mind games with the contestants. I actually tried to find that article last night but I had no luck.

Was it the Jon Ronson article?

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/oct/21/broadcasting.arts

It's a good read.

Mr E

Great read, thanks for that.

Thargor

Noel Edmonds is an absolute fruitcake, magnetic bracelets and crystal skulls and all that sh1t.

I lived with someone once in college who was excited to see how an episode would go because they'd brought a blind person on to play, he got a bit thick with me when I tried to get him to explain what possible difference that would make, thats the target audience that kept them on air for so long.

I remember 8 out of 10 Cats tried to do it a couple of times like Countdown but gave up because it was just too stupid and even they couldnt get any entertainment out of it aswell.

dublinman1990

Well by today's standard's; the final game was a thriller for all of the right reasons.

brian_t

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Well by today's standard's; the final game was a thriller for all of the right reasons.

I don't watch it. Was that the last ever game.

It's repeated tomorrow at 6pm on 4seven. Might watch it then.

fryup

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Well by today's standard's; the final game was a thriller for all of the right reasons.

how much did they win??

brian_t

fryup wrote: »

how much did they win??

27-year-old Scottish Guide dog care assistant Vikki Heenan won the £250,000 jackpot

Thargor

And that was the last ever episode? Thats a bit convenient isnt it?

Go Harvey Go

Thargor wrote: »

And that was the last ever episode? Thats a bit convenient isnt it?

It wasn't the last one to be filmed.

They almost certainly did a few retakes after the £250k was revealed...

Yourself isit

ixoy wrote: »

Did anyone ever just go through the boxes in numerical order:

Contestant: "Box One."
Noel: "That's £200. So Contest is a statistical analyst - what sort of game will you be playing today?".
Contestant: "One based on a knowledge of probability. Box Two"
Noel: "Oh well done! That's 50p! Well done!"
Contestant: "I merely picked a box of whose content I had no control of. Box Three"
Noel: "You don't want to try a lucky system? Maybe ask the audience? What box should he pick audience?"
[Audience roars nonsense]
Contestant: Barring a predetermined system, or insider knowledge, they have no useful knowledge to impart. Box Three.
Noel: Okay, sounds like a strategy! £1000!
Contestant: Box Four..
Noel: [getting desperate] You can't just go in order can you? How about a different number? Maybe your cat's birthday or the number of pigs you saw in a pet farm as a kid? What about the date you first ate a Twix bar?
Contestant: No Noel, that is illogical. The progressive set of normal numbers will suffice. Box Four."

I mean surely somebody wanted to play the game like that?

It's a game you can't really lose. Open a few boxes and make some money. But if you make 30k and end up with 250k in the final box you "lose" and if it's 1p, you "win"

Statistically you've won both ways.

s8n

Go Harvey Go wrote: »

Not surprised that DOND is finally ending.

IMHO, the last truly good year for the show was 2011, and it's been all downhill since then. Just like with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, changes were made in order to arrest falling viewing figures - extending the episodes from 45 to 60 minutes, Box 23, the offer button. And, just like with WWTBAM, these changes didn't really work.

The general response when Paddy Roberts became the first male quarter-millionaire on 12 August 2013 was "meh", as it was six months later when Roop Singh became the first jackpot winner over the age of 25 and then turned down the chance to double his winnings via the aforementioned Box 23. Not many people were excited, either, about couples playing the game (billed as Double Trouble) or Noel trying it out for himself (on 18 September 2015, as part of the show's 10th anniversary celebrations). And the ideas of the Ha'penny Certificate and the Pilgrims of the Day were never going to catch on as much as those of the 1p Barge, the Curse of the Newbie and £26,000 being "the Governor".

Like many other people, I was a die-hard fan of DOND during its first few years - even after Laura Pearce became the first quarter-millionaire on 7 January 2007. Then university life forced me to reduce my commitments, and by the time I graduated (in September 2012), the show was pretty much beginning its long, slow terminal decline.

Still, eleven years isn't a bad innings for a 21st-century game show. And I'll always have good memories from the time when I was a die-hard fan - including Nick Bain establishing the 1p Club (3 January 2006), Morris Simpson turning down £101k on a £20k/£250k final two (6 May 2006), Graeme Garioch dealing for that amount after turning down £41k with only the £250k higher (4 May 2007), Tax-Free Harry (22 October 2006), Farmer Clive (4 January 2008), and of course, the aforementioned Laura Pearce (below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dscWG6so5Mc

I will, however, close by saying this: DOND was considered by many to be a replacement for Fifteen-to-One, and it has now effectively been replaced by Fifteen-to-One. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

bit of a fan,eh ?

Gael23

I still enjoy it but all these shows run their course.

Irish Guitarist

There's a clip on YouTube where a female contestant makes a bit of a joke and Noel Edmunds in all seriousness tells her that kind of thing isn't suitable for television and tells her to leave. I forget exactly what she says but it wasn't that dirty and really it was a natural response to something Noel Edmunds had said. All the contestants then walk off the set in protest. It's cringeworthy and ridiculous but the funniest thing that has ever happened on the programme.

The whole thing is ridiculous anyway. 'The Banker' is like some pantomime villain. They don't want to just come out and say that the programme itself doesn't want contestants winning a large amount of money so they create a baddie that everyone can hate while Noel acts like everyones friend (although the illusion of that was shattered in the clip I mentioned, I wish I could find it).

I have no idea how it lasted so long. I used to watch it years ago before I had Sky television as there was nothing else on at that time of day.

Go Harvey Go

s8n wrote: »

bit of a fan,eh ?

Was.

I stopped being a fan during mid-2012, just as the show was beginning its long, slow descent into oblivion - and just as Tipping Point was arriving on ITV.

I shamefully admit to being a bit of a fan of that show these days...

Gael23 wrote: »

I still enjoy it but all these shows run their course.

The last-ever episode has just aired, so you'll probably have to speak about the show in the past tense now.

Thargor

It couldnt even be called a game show though could it? Tipping point requires a bit of general knowledge at least. I would literally watch any other game show made in the last decade before I watched an episode of DoND, even without Noel Edmonds and the godawful drama queen attention whore contestants. Its just tedious noise.

Go Harvey Go

Well, I think one thing we can all agree on is that it should have ended a lot earlier than it did.

Even when I was a fan, I could only see DOND lasting six or seven years at the most. Sure enough, 2011 was the show's last truly good year, and I gave up on it very shortly afterwards.

Some may feel that it should have ended after three or four years (and even that wouldn't have been obviously too soon, as by mid-2009 there had been two £250,000 winners and loads of 1p winners), others may feel that it should have ended after one or two, and others still may feel that it should never even have made it to the air (which was never going to be the case, as it was a big hit in several countries - including, of course, its native Netherlands - before it reached the UK).

But I think all of us can agree that eleven years - and nearly 3,000 episodes - was way too much.

Do we agree or disagree, however, that Golden Balls was even worse? It too was a big-money guessing game - but it also invited its contestants to lie to each other, shout at each other, argue with each other and stab each other in the back...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8MDqWbpiv4

Skid X

Comedian Richard Herring pitched a proposal to Endemol once that they should broadcast some episodes with a commentary dubbed in, where some experts would discuss the live game offers in terms of statistical probability and risk/reward payoffs

I thought it was an interesting idea but it didn't get anywhere. He wrote this blog back in 2008, and unfortunately from then on the tone of the programme only became increasingly more nonsensical.



http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/4/11/2008/index.html

The game could be used to teach the populace something interesting about probability and statistics (stuff which might prove useful to them in making real life decisions), but instead it's about the idea that some numbers are more magical or more unfortunate than others and spotting false patterns such as the fact that the newest player "always" has a high number or box 22 is the box of death.

I think the overriding thing that annoys me about it is the way that it has become a competition with the banker and that Noel Edmonds encourages people to think they have won or lost because they settled for an amount more or less than what was in their box. This is stupid. Everyone is a winner as they come to the studio and invest nothing but their time and are guaranteed to make some money. It's not even proper gambling as they lose nothing other than something they might already have won. Yet if someone is faced with one high value box and seven low value boxes and chooses to deal, they have not made a bad decision if it turns out that the big money was in their box. They have made a sensible choice, based on probability and seven times out of eight would walk away with more than was in their box. They have won.

To chastise people for understanding mathematics, or to congratulate them for going ahead with such a foolhardy risk is sending out the wrong message. You can choose to gamble - if I was on there I might just hope that one of the big amounts was in my box and play to the end, given that I'd have a five in twenty-two shot at making tens of thousands of pounds for no outlay from myself. But if you get down to £100,000 and 1p and settle for £20,000 that doesn't make you a loser if you turn out to have the larger amount in front of you. You'd have to be a maniac to take the risk. As a gambler it's an amazing bet as you get five times your money for a fifty fifty bet. But as a regular person if you are given the choice of £20,000 which you can definitely take away with you right now in return for doing essentially nothing, then taking that risk wouldn't make you a winner, even if you won.