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I love Karen the dungeoneer. The way she's clearly freaked out by the Automatum in the wellway room shows just how scary that thing is! And I know it's mean to laugh at people tripping over, but it is pretty hilarious how she falls down the stairs in the clue room not once but twice. *g* Their accents are great too. I like how easily they come up with some tips for Gretel, where plenty of teams would have struggled to think of anything to say.

I additionally liked the follow-up comment by one of the advisors after they cast the RUST spell on the Automatum:

"Do not go to your right as you'll kick him!"

And that's the end of that. few things I noticed.
Nobody said Rust was a spell, Mildred said it was a word. Last time she said that the team died and we never new what it was for... perhaps that to was a spell and not a password?

Blood stone... I thought there were Fire stones?

Opposite day was great but a miss opportunity I thought, although it did trick the team, not that the wall monster would have been helpful. The also made the mistake of eating the fish, notice it didn't restore the life force.

Almost fell down the stairs, but I sounds like the team had watched series one and knew what they were doing, despite being poor at navigating.

Bit of a tame end to the series, and I feel sorry for the team who never even had a chance of winning.

I think blood stone was another name for the fire stone. I'm sure I have seen that in a different episode. Plus I believe Rust was a spell.

I thought it was a decent episode to end the second series. The way Karen said 'Help!' made me laugh and it was funny to hear Treguard chuckle in the background!

The team were too clever for their own good I think. When Treguard said you can command Grantias, the team said to Karen don't. I think they should have though! Either way the production team wern't going to kill the team off as it was the last episode, it would have been pointless. With the items, I don't think it was part of opposite day.

For me, the opposite day didn't work for me. It might have worked earlier on in the series as if the team messed up, the production team would have killed them off. But for the last episode it was far too late. I think the production team did it with another team in s4 and they perished if I remember correctly.

Sad now S2 has finished!

wombstar wrote:Nobody said Rust was a spell, Mildred said it was a word. Last time she said that the team died and we never new what it was for... perhaps that to was a spell and not a password?

If I recall correctly, she specified that Neil's word wasn't a spell.

wombstar wrote:Blood stone... I thought there were Fire stones?

The red gems aren't called firestones until about Series 5. No idea what the difference is between a bloodstone and a firestone, if any!

For me Opposite Day /Back to Front Day didn't really work because not everything was backwards / opposite. Treguard constantly gave out misinformation, so when he advised the team to call out, "I command you" it's no wonder that they didn't. I also found myself wondering whether the quest really was for the chalice and whether the wall monster had given out the wrong item because of Opposite Day. I thought that maybe the team would encounter two doorways - one with the chalice next to it and one with a different object - and that because it was Opposite Day, the door without the chalice should be taken.

It seems to me that the Jericho 6 room was inserted as a convenient ending - the team seemed to have no opportunity of obtaining a way to bypass it.

Finally, I thought that Gretel's plunger comment was a bit much for a kids show! I can't see that they would have got away with that nowadays . . .

Gretel said that 'Back to Front' Day occurred from when Karen left to the kitchen until when they found out what their quest was. This is why when they meet Granitas he (unusually) tells them what their quest is before asking them the riddles, to avoid confusion. When Treguard says "you know what your quest is now", it's to prompt the girls into following his instructions (as everything was back to normal).

Granitas Is Cute wrote:Gretel said that 'Back to Front' Day occurred from when Karen left to the kitchen until when they found out what their quest was. This is why when they meet Granitas he (unusually) tells them what their quest is before asking them the riddles, to avoid confusion. When Treguard says "you know what your quest is now", it's to prompt the girls into following his instructions (as everything was back to normal).

Thanks for that Granitas Is Cute. I obviously completely missed that bit It makes a lot more sense now !

Think back to front day might have confused the producers as well - after the clue room the mechanical warrior is in front of them in the corridor which for my money is back to front. Appreciate that a threat advancing from this direction is in line with how the corridor normally works though so open to debate I suppose.

Sad that Friday Knightmare is over for the time being...

Back to front day, a brilliant idea in concept, but I reckon Tim might have been frustrated as to how it worked out. I always thought it would have worked better once there were two permanent members of the Powers that Be, so one can always play things the right way around, to hammer the point home.

Wasnn't the Jerivho 6 Room where Series 1 ended as well - same animation?

This episode is perhaps the only one where Treguard's dungeon ditty is longer than what it's actually recapping!

In the Series 2 Episode 11 thread, I wrote:It's a sad irony that Audrey [Jenkinson], who had a hellish personal life in the 1980s and 1990s, came to doubt her own prettiness so much that she resorted to rhinoplasty.

An irony that hits home even harder when rewatching this episode, with Gretel trying to give herself a nose job.

I liked Back-To-Front Day and the idea that Treguard was joining in just to mess with the team's minds. Granitas should perhaps have opened with "I am not Granitas of legend".

Is this the only time that a dungeoneer found food in two consecutive rooms? And is Karen the only dungeoneer to encounter fish, poultry and red meat?

Billy wrote:This team somehow managed to survive to the end of the series despite making some crucial slip ups- one of which being that they didn't call out 'I Command You' due to them still thinking it was back to front day.

The team did err by not calling out "I command you" but it was far from a crucial slip-up. They'd already been advised as to which clue object to leave behind, so it's hard to imagine that the bonus information they missed was anything important. They didn't need both clue objects to complete Level 1 anyway - though perhaps going down a wellway with the gold was what landed them in the gold mine.

It's interesting to see Mildread so vulnerable and then so benevolent. She'd never met a female dungeoneer before so perhaps she looked kindly on Karen.

This quest certainly packs in the slapstick. But not at the expense of satire ("blackleg"), innuendo ("playing with his plunger") and surrealism ("Toenails will save me!"). It makes for an entertaining if not epicurean quest.

Robin/Mashibinin once showed me how a certain dungeoneer's name can work as a gun powder pun. AK ash. I like the advisors' excited reactions when Bumptious tells them he's giving them a spell.

elcondor wrote:Wasnn't the Jerivho 6 Room where Series 1 ended as well - same animation?

Series 1's final quest came to a natural end at the Jericho wall, with no special effects of the Dungeon disintegrating. In Karen's quest, Jericho seemed to be inserted as a way to curtail the quest.

I wonder what became of Casper when Karen was magicked back to the antechamber.*

If this last episode of '88 was the 24th of 112 (in Series 1-8) then Knightmare had 88 episodes ahead.

*I don't wonder.

elcondor wrote:Back to front day, a brilliant idea in concept, but I reckon Tim might have been frustrated as to how it worked out. I always thought it would have worked better once there were two permanent members of the Powers that Be, so one can always play things the right way around, to hammer the point home.

Wasnn't the Jerivho 6 Room where Series 1 ended as well - same animation?

It was a good idea in concept maybe, but to pull it off was going to be so hard to do.
An example for me was that Grantias might have scorned the team for getting all riddles right if back to front day was in effect. You can't just have certain parts stay as normal otherwise it would be so confusing to the team and the viewers.

I don't blame the producers as it was so hard to execute this and they were trying something different. I just think it was better to have left the idea alone.

Not sure the even needed the Jericho room, the episode was going to end regardless of what room they were in, It could have been Merlin's room, they don't need a brick wall in the way.

Maybe because series 1 ended with it they decided to do it again.

And one final appearance in the Challenge + 1 top ten for the week!

1 WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE CELEBRITY? (SAT 1559) 50,000
2 WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE CELEBRITY? (FRI 2202) 42,000
3 TNA IMPACT (SUN 2200) 38,000
4 FUN HOUSE (FRI 2301) 28,000
5 TOTAL WIPEOUT UK (MON 1800) 25,000
6 WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE CELEBRITY? (WED 2201) 22,000
7 KNIGHTMARE (FRI 2330) 21,000
8 BULLSEYE (SUN 2100) 21,000
9 FAMILY FORTUNES (THU 2000) 20,000
10 BULLSEYE (SUN 2131) 18,000

Pretty good figures. If they can sustain that amount or gain more if they show it in a different timeslot then it could prove the difference in acquiring more series.