Series 1

[Fidjit]

Does that explain the quicksand caverns in series three?

[MoanaLiza]

I find series 3 creepier. I can't watch series 2 so I can't have an opinion of it, but in reference to what Kieran said about The Vale of Vanburn and distant characters, goblins approaching used to scare me more. In respect to series 1 being scary, I didn't really find it scary. But then again I didn't watch it the first time around so I wouldn't know.

[Kieran]

I did find the catacomebite in S1 to be rather scary, that was back in 1987, and still believe it was quite nasty creature!

[Wolfshead]

Yes well KM used to scare me quite a lot back in the old days of CITV, but I can remember being far more sacared of Olgarth and Granitas (Grannet arse) than Golgarach and Brangwen.

I just thought it was kind of darker and although as a KM fan I knew more or less what would happen and what rooms would come up there was still some tension for example when some dungeoneres came so close to dying of starvation before they got the food.

Also the haunting music on the death sequence and in the first room of level 3 was quite creepy, I never said scary. Thinking back to the old days I can't remember just how scared I was of series 1, but seem to think that 2 and 3 scared me a bit.

I'll find out when I get back home and start watching series 2 how it compares to 1 and 3.

[Gretel]

Dragging this back to life (sorry but it's been a while since I've watched any seasons enough to comment!) to admit that I spent most of Series 1 wondering just how the hell Lilith got a pillow to her chamber?

And what the heck did Treguard do to annoy her so badly?

Anyone got any hints for me or know of anything blatent I missed?

[Canadanne]

I spent most of Series 1 wondering just how the hell Lilith got a pillow to her chamber?

And what the heck did Treguard do to annoy her so badly?

Anyone got any hints for me or know of anything blatent I missed?

There is a fanfic in which Lillith is the Gruagach's consort, a suggestion I like very much, since the gamebooks do suggest she is the Lillith of mythology who ran off with a demon after leaving Adam.

In which case, Treguard killing the Gruagach and taking over his dungeon probably wouldn't go down too well with his missus.

[Gretel]

I spent most of Series 1 wondering just how the hell Lilith got a pillow to her chamber?

And what the heck did Treguard do to annoy her so badly?

Anyone got any hints for me or know of anything blatent I missed?

There is a fanfic in which Lillith is the Gruagach's consort, a suggestion I like very much, since the gamebooks do suggest she is the Lillith of mythology who ran off with a demon after leaving Adam.

In which case, Treguard killing the Gruagach and taking over his dungeon probably wouldn't go down too well with his missus.

I'm just now seeing this... I like that suggestion also. Works for me.

[CSTKM]

I'm a newbie to the site and feel I want to start with my assessment of series 1 and how they stand in relation to others people's and am attempting to be fair to both the members and the programme. It may not work but that is what I am hoping for. To do this I think I should note two or three things that should be borne in mind when assessing Knightmare.

a). The context,

As far as I can understand and remember Knightmare was originally transmitted on CITV from 1987 to 1994. It was the last programme in the after school transmission block each week and was also usually the last programme transmitted before CITV ceased transmission over Christmas. Only series 1 and 8 appear to end sooner.
It went out at the end of the year when the nights were growing cold and dark, which helped reinforce its mood, and, if I remember rightly, without any commercial break in the middle dividing the programme in two. These have been added by challenge and, I suppose, earlier the Sci-Fi channel to meet the financial needs of their time slots. This would explain the sometimes anomalous commercial cuts that I've read mentioned on the forum by some members occasionally. In the original transmission there weren't any so technically they're all wrong.

b). The audience,

Knightmare is an awesome programme and worthy of the ratings in got and awards it received and surely didn't deserve to be axed when it was.

Nevertheless, it must also be remembered that, as I understand it, most of the members of this site are adults who meet to discuss and consider Knightmare through a lens of nostagia. In this context and with us being older it is hardly surprising that we might be inclined to view Knightmare more critically than we did at the time when we were impressed by how fresh it was and, lets not pretend otherwise, scary. It was easy to get carried away with Knighmare at the time.

The addition of commercials, which I don't believe it had at the time, makes this harder. It means were more likely to switch our critical faculties on while we wait for it to come back. We struggle not to think about whether it's worth waiting for or not. Well, so I would imagine anyway.

c). The content,

Despite those facts the show does stand or fall on it's content and this is what our critical mind will test.

So first the positives. Well, it works. It doesn't look a mess, you can see what's happening and follow what's going on. And the characters work well even if we don't get to see them as much as was probably intended.

Then the 'negatives'. Negatives are annoyingly easier to delineate than positives. The fact there will be more negatives below than positives above should not in anyway be taken as suggesting the negatives outweigh the positives.

Much is made of how 'difficult' Knightmare seems to be. It often looks 'harsh' as many here have described it, unforgiving is a word that keeps occurring to me. It looks like a team's visit to the dungeon can be ended because of a mistake they made about three rooms back which they couldn't have known they were making because they didn't do quite well enough on the puzzle. It feels inherently unfair.

On the other hand, evidence does suggest that there were generally multiple ways to solve any given level, a team had probably, in fact, made several mistakes in making that one, BIG mistake.

That said, this is where our critical faculties really come into play as adult perhaps more than they would have when we were children watching at the time. Because, I know that in spite of myself, I can't help thinking, 'these deaths are stupid.'

That's feels incredible judgemental. I'm an "armchair adventurer" and an adult and these are children often being panicked into error by 'life force fading' or other warnings of imminent danger or death.

But the deaths still look stupid. 50% of them (1, 5, 6) are completely anti-climatic: the game just stops because the team made a choice earlier which means they can't proceed now. A literal dead-end. The resolution of the story is entirely exposition.

That, I feel, may be the only actual problem. Knightmare is a series of loosely connected but independent stories. When a team loses, the story can seem unfinished especially if the endings are as unsatisfying as the three mentioned above.

The first series must be considered as poor stories, at least on the evidence we have, better stories later solve this prove greatly. Other objections I'm not sure are as bad as they seem.

Certainly some teams are slow and this tries our patience. Back in the day we'd probably have been glad of the opportunity to take in the scenery which we'd never seen the like of before. This days we're impatient for the quest (and story) to proceed.

The other principle objection is the repetitiveness of the script but again this is likely due to how we are perceiving the show now. This was done for editing purposes and to convey the necessary information as succinctly as possible. Temporal disruption was certainly nothing any of the teams actually seem to have experienced so far as I can tell, although I expect the quest probably actually suspended from one room to the next while the designers changed the computer programme and applied other elements of continuity. But I expect you'll know better than me about that.

Back in the day I expect with a week between each episode we'd probably forget at least for a couple of weeks that the script gave us deja vu and just imbibed the information.

I hope this, perhaps, overlong introduction of my rambling thoughts is acceptable to the community who have had time to read all the relevant pages while at the moment I just want to get on with what I registered to do and read them if and when they become pertinent.

Sorry for the ridiculous length, briefness is not my forte.

[DuxBellorum]

I think looking at it 30 years on, it is easy for an adult to 'see through' a children's program.

But as a five year old - The first episode aired a week before my 6th Birthday - Knightmare both amazed and terrified me!

I had never seen anything like it.

There was nothing like it!

Being able to enter a completely different world and interact with characters from that world had never been done before in Children's TV, and I don't think it had been done in grown up TV either.

The Automatum and the Catacombite still give me the creeps.

Even Treguard could be pretty menacing in the early days before leading the Powers That Be.

I certainly wouldn't want to meet Lillith in a dark alley, even 30 years later.

Being the first series, Knightmare, like any series, has to establish itself and find its feet and the cast still have to get to grips with their characters.

Look at series one of Only Fools or Big Bang Theory for examples of this.

Series 2 of Knightmare was therefore naturally more developed and slicker and series 3 is seen as the high point.

But imagine a Friday afternoon without series 1!

Not only is the show fantastic, the performances brilliant, but Knightmare started my obsession for Medieval and Dark Age history.

[CSTKM]

'See through' wasn't what I'm trying to suggest. I think many children's programmes can and do stand up to scrutiny even to adults. They are made differently because they need to address the audiences different considerations. But consistent children's content especially drama and comedy can be seen as highly good even by adults. Good stories are good stories.

My point remains that in series one for various reasons the stories are not as good as one might hope.

I'm trying to work on my own quest commentaries to explain my feeling about this more.

Knightmare began when I was 5 but I don't think I started watching it until I was 6 which would be series 2, it may even have been series 3 I hope to check later. It could, of course, have been series 1 you don't have much sense of series continuity when you're 5 something i hope to address in the commentaries.

I was particularly scared of that scorpion (which may answer the above question) and Ariadne which was creepy, I agree the Catacombites are scary, I'm not sure I currently remember the Automatons.

Treguard wasn't as menacing in earlier series as you think he was, another thing I address in the commentaries. He did however seem a bit patronizing. Telling the dungeoneers and advisers where they'd gone wrong after if was patently obvious.

First series' are difficult though I agree, though the second series is often considered even harder as you have to preserve the good things you've got.

I'm not sure Only Fools And Horses and The Big Bang Theory are comparable though because they are different types of sitcom.

It's often mentioned that Only Fools And Horses performed so poorly it was nearly cancelled and would surely have been had it been made today. The Big Bang Theory was made today.

To me the limitations of the first series of Big Bang Theory are down to artistic refusal to serialize from the get go. So many modern American series with the sort of full-length run U.S. shows often have are serialized because it keeps the audience engaged with the story.

This, however, is a bigger risk with first seasons because if you serialize them and they fail you end up with a lot more loose ends and possibly unresolved cliffhangers than if you do what BBT did in its first season and run it entirely procedurally even when it's asking to be serialized.

Just what I felt anyway.

But yes, you are definitely right Knightmare is awesome. I hope when and if I finish and publish may quest commentaries my level of appreciation will be clearer.

[DuxBellorum]

I only referenced Only Fools and Big Bang as the first examples that came to mind of the cast having to 'find' their characters.

If you take early Del Boy or early Sheldon, its as if David Jason and and Jim Parsons are still becoming their characters, and that took a series or two for it to all fall in to place, and you could name any number of Sitcoms, Drama, or live Theatre.

Knightmare was no different.

But I also understand and agree with the 'difficult second album' perspective.

The difference in quality and performance between series 1 and series 2 was noticeable. This was of course to happen with every series. Knightmare innovated where very few children's shows did.

Knightmare still had to 'find' itself in series one, hence the shorter run and the stories perhaps not being quite as developed as they became, especially during the peak which was probably series 3-6.

Indeed, I actually think that series 7 is somewhat of a step back.

Maybe it's nostalgia as I clearly remember 'where I was' when the first episode aired.

But yes there were kinks to iron out, which comes with pretty much any first series/album/book and there were ideas and improvements that were yet to be developed - The deaths you brought up are an excellent example of this.

But we needed series 1 to be the launch pad for all the other excellent Knightmare that was to come.

[CSTKM]

I agree with most of that, although I think you may be putting the cart before the horse when you suggest that Knightmare series one was shorter becuase it was just finding its self. It was shorter because ITV only commissioned 8 episodes not knowing if it would be worth them spending there money on or not or even if it come be executed effectively and consistently afterwards. It clearly could but have only 8 episodes to play with no doubt limited a lot.

As I said I'm not sure I ever saw the first episode of Knightmare of even the first series. I suspect I may have done but think I may have joined it somewhere in the middle. It may also ben that i watched an awful lot of children's TV at the age so it might just have been part of my routine so how I came to watch it doesn't stick in my memory much.

But yes, all series need their first series to lay the ground for and indeed decide if there should be a second.

[Morghanna]

I have just finished a run of watching Series 1 again. I will comment on individual episodes where appropriate, but i wanted to share some thoughts on the series as a whole.

It was a good (if shorter) series, and right from the start it was a winner. Most of the classic ingredients are there right away.
Hugo Myatt was brilliant right from day 1. The look of the dungeon was fantastic, proven by the fact that many of the rooms were re-used for the next two series as well. The life-force clock is great.
The characters were varied and interesting.
Lillith was a genuine threat in level 1, Folly was entertaining, Gumboil and Gibbet were menacing and Cedric was brilliantly abusive in level 2. John Woodnut was great as Merlin, tho sadly he was not actually seen as Mogdred in this series, only mentioned in the plot.
I like the wall monsters Granitas & Olgarth and the fact that Treguard couldn't really tell which was which.

Gibbet the surly level 2 guard would have been a good character to retain and as actor Alec Westwood returned for series 2 as Folly, i am surprised that he wasn't given a few scenes as Gibbet as well.

As with any new program, there were some things in the first series that were subsequently improved upon. At times the tempo is a little slow. The intro's are rather too lengthy and the scenes with Olgarth, Granitas & Cedric have too much explanation. The scene with Cedric & Folly in particular, way outstayed it's welcome!

No winning teams (altho one came soooo close) and several of the teams had a tough time of it, but that was always the appeal of Knightmare, that it wasn't easy. In subsequent series, teams seemed to benefit from having a better idea of how the game worked.

[JamesA]

Gibbet the surly level 2 guard would have been a good character to retain and as actor Alec Westwood returned for series 2 as Folly, i am surprised that he wasn't given a few scenes as Gibbet as well.

I had the pleasure of meeting Alec Westwood in person when I interviewed him for my 25th anniversary documentary.

Although this doesn't feature in the documentary itself, one of the questions I asked him was why Gibbet never came back for Series 2. He stated that there were some complaints received about the character, which is why Alec only played Folly during that series. You can read the full transcript of my interview with Alec here.

Hope this helps.

[Morghanna]

Thank-you James for your link, that's greatly appreciated. It's always interesting to read a little about the cast of a production.
Another thing that i liked about Knightmare right from the start is how adaptable the cast were, as many of them played two very different roles in a series, in this case Gibbet & Folly. I didn't actually realise that they were both Alec Westwood until i saw the credits.