Dates (Only Fools and Horses) Dates (Only Fools and Horses) "Dates" is the seventh Christmas special episode of the BBC sitcom, "Only Fools and Horses", first broadcast on 25 December 1988. In the episode, Del Boy joins a dating agency and meets Raquel. Rodney also goes on a date, with Nag's Head barmaid Nerys. The Trotters have been earning a lot of money recently, and Uncle Albert's birthday is approaching, which Del Boy and Rodney pretend to have forgotten. Meanwhile, after seeing a girl Trigger has met through a local dating agency, Del also decides to sign up. Styling himself "Derek Duvall", managing director of
Raquel Watts anything you might see at the National". In a 2010 feature examining "Coronation Street" matriarchs, "Daily Mirror" columnist Tony Stewart named Raquel his favourite, deeming her one of the programme's funniest characters. Considering the ten best soap opera Christmas moments, "Guardian" writer Daniel Martin included the 1994 "Coronation Street" episode in which Curly names a star after Raquel, praising it as an example of the producers not taking the "easy option" of a Christmas Day wedding. The "Sunday Tribune" Diarmuid Doyle lauded the way Raquel overcame the blonde stereotype, "balancing her ditziness with real warmth and likeability and becoming one