Dates (Only Fools and Horses) while at the "Nag's Head" he is approached by the two police officers still searching for the owner of the yellow van. Believing the female officer to be another stripper hired by Albert, Del rips her blouse off and is arrested. Heartbroken, Raquel leaves for the Middle East just as Del Boy is taken into custody. 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,
Raquel Watts the star itself has gone." Reviewing the two-hander episode between Raquel and Curly, Banks-Smith called it "profoundly melancholic", describing Raquel as, "the barmaid every man dreamed would serve him, leaning like the blessed damozel from the gold bar of heaven, backed by shining spirits in bottles. A barmaid in excelsis. Beautiful as a daffodil though not as bright. A fine comic creation but entirely without a sense of humour." Ross, a long-standing fan of "Coronation Street", classes Raquel as one of the programme's greatest characters, alongside Elsie Tanner (Pat Phoenix) and Hilda Ogden (Jean Alexander), all "as brilliantly watchable as