Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

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Mystara
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by Mystara »

Ah, sorry, I misinterpreted your last post then :)

I think the issue of an "easy ride" is a separate one to the whole winning/losing status, to be honest. I think, just because of how the dice fell, some teams just got it easier than others.

But honestly, I don't know what the background is. Maybe there were much harder rooms cut, or maybe there were other considerations that lead to the quest appearing easier than it actually was.
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by pjmlfc05 »

No worries! I should have made myself more clear! :)

Yeah there was always going to be quests that were harder than others and I do appreciate they have to differ from time to time! I guess it's down to how the team deals with situations presented to them.
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by HobGoblin »

Watching the repeats with a critical adult eye I've found the tension between 'good TV' and fair gameplay to be absolutely key. I've started making notes for an article on the subject but real life keeps getting the way of any actual writing. It's also a topic that leads to some difficult conclusions. I wouldn't go as far as to say I think it was all a fix but it's not easy to say that all teams were treated fairly - the episode threads over the last few months give plenty of examples of where teams perhaps got a rough ride or weren't really challenged (though a team being allowed to get a bit further to suit the production schedule is a bit more understandable than an unfair death).

As for 'losing status' my interpretation was that this was always gameplay related i.e. a spell wasn't earned or the wrong item picked up. I have no problem with teams fluking their way through the dungeon or not knowing left from right when it doesn't matter - luck is after all part of gaming and ideally a challenge would eventually be presented which sheer incompetence cannot deal with - but I have a problem with the idea of artificially killing teams off just because they are dithering idiots.

I do think, perhaps more so in later series, that teams were rewarded for being entertaining. Barry is perhaps the strongest example - he was a superb dungeoneer but should have been killed by goblins when his advisors messed up and missed a bit of staff. A willingness to role play and engage charismatically with characters, coupled with generally excellent advisors, were rewarded with a short cut and a winning quest. Many (perhaps most) viewers may think this is perfectly reasonable but to me they made a mistake and should have died. It's particularly galling when you think of some of the unfair deaths.

This doesn't explain Julian's win of course. Perhaps they just wanted another win for variety.

Ultimately, when two winning quests happened on the last episode of a series thanks to some form of short cut, it's hard to think of KM's gameplay as being an exemplar of fairness.

A more positive conclusion is that Mr Child achieved his primary objective of making fantastic television so who cares about fairness? But I'm glad my seven year old self didn't see the show with these cynical adult eyes!
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by pjmlfc05 »

Without going off topic too much, I agree with everything you have mentioned and I'm looking forward to the article!

One thing, Julian himself was a good dungoneer. The advisers I felt could have been better. Julian did everything right that was asked of him, it's just I felt him and the team could have come across more challenges. Maybe then, their victory might have been more justified.
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by wombstar »

Both winners in series 2 were pretty much spoon-fed.
It's not that they didn't anything wrong but they were never giving the chance to either.

Also, getting left and right wrong is no reason the force a kill, I don't expect a team to be absolutely perfect, it just means they might step off the edge or fall down a hole of their not careful.. luckily for this team they didn't.
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by dugeoneerborne »

I didn't like this win (especially the teams reacton when they won) they didn't seem very enthusiastic or even remotely happy they won, just meh, I also think they won the quest far too easily (the medusa room was good with treguard telling the team when to look and direct the dungeoneer though), km was and still is a gameshow that a lot of people would give their right arm for and I hated that this team just didn't seem to care that much period, the first team were atleast happy and really excited about it.

If that was Me on km then I would've been over the bloody moon if I won.
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by Kieran »

Yes, the winning team here never seemed particularly enthusiastic to me. I didn't find them to be a particularly competent team; their direction of the Dungeoneer wasn't exactly ace.


And that cap was silly.
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Re: Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by Canadanne »

This episode made the weekly top 10 on Challenge + 1:

1 CLASSIC WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE (TUE 2200) 44,000
2 CLASSIC WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE (MON 2200) 32,000
3 PRICE IS RIGHT (FRI 1330) 23,000
4 FAMILY FORTUNES (SUN 1730) 20,000
5 DEAL OR NO DEAL (MON 0702) 20,000
6 TOTAL WIPEOUT USA (WED 1901) 20,000
7 TNA IMPACT (SUN 2203) 19,000
8 KNIGHTMARE (FRI 2329) 18,000
9 NOEL'S ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 10 YEAR OLD? (MON 0830) 18,000
10 CLASSIC WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE (WED 2200) 18,000
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by pjmlfc05 »

Considering the timeslot, it's a good effort.
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by Morghanna »

Memorable episode, with another winning team. Yay! :)
In the clue room there was a powerful feeling of deja-vu. Julian nearly walked straight into the cavernwight by the left-hand door. In episode 3, team 3 did exactly the same thing. 8-o
Thankfully there was no repetition of team 3 in the medusa's room tho.
:question: Where was the stone statue of Christopher? Has it been stolen? ;D
Liked the way Treguard had them take turns guiding Julian for a few seconds each in that room.
Comfortably made it thru the last few rooms, altho their directional movement was a bit slow. Nice moment when they completed their quest.
It's a shame that Julian's team have been slated so much. They were a very intelligent team and it's not their fault that the quest they were set was less exciting than some.
One final comment on this team: Becca's hat looked really cool. 8)

Moving on and this time it truly was a case of "after the lord mayor's show". Team 11 didn't exactly set the dungeon alight. They negotiated a bomb room far more calmly than most teams, but after that it nosedived. They only scored 1/3 against a predictably grouchy Igneous, then misread the label on the potion bottle as "poison"....
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Re: Series 2 - Episode 12

Post by asrl07 »

rmcintosh1983 wrote: 22 Sep 2013, 20:39 In my opinion, Julian's team are the least impressive winners of Knightmare. It's a disgrace that they go down as more successful than Leo or Martin in the history books!
What strikes me about this wining team was the lack of riddles compared to many other teams. Several of the riddles I haven't known the answer too, but this lot gained help from Merlin and got past the dragon without having to do anything other than some basic directing. Leo's team in series 3 had a horrid riddle in level 3 which they got wrong and sealed their fate. It seems that the probability of winning is inversely proportional to the nomber of riddles a team gets on a quest, as it seems to be most of the deaths are from failing to earn magic or useful information.
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by Morghanna »

Neither winning team in series 2 faced any questions in level 3 and there were some suggestions that it had not been tough enough.
In series 3 the single difficult make-or-break question in level 3 raised the bar, but proved too much for both teams who reached that point.
:-/ It must have been very tricky for the producers to find the optimum level of difficulty, especially as there were teams aged anywhere from 11 to 16.
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by asrl07 »

There is definitely significant bias going on, the winning teams have been given an easier ride, although to be fair to them, they still had to avoid blunders. There is a difference between judging the show watching it for the first time as a child and watching it now over 30 years later. It would be interesting to find out if there had been attempts to minimise bias i.e. make quests as level as possible in difficulty, so that a team which gets everything right is almost certain to win, and a team that makes a mistake has a chance to win if they correctly guess the right clue room objects, would it make great TV? Does the attraction of professional sport come from admiring the skill of the competitors, or the uncertainty of the winner due to the luck factor?
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by Mystara »

Is it bias, or is it just imperfect balance?
To me, bias implies a wilful desire. An imperfect balance, on the other hand, could simply arise because it's fundamentally very difficult to say (especially in advance) whether two quests are equally hard. Add the fact that the quests had a predetermined path to the equation and a badly performing team could win through sheer luck. That doesn't mean there's a bias though (to my mind, anyway).
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Re: Re:Series 2 - Episode 13

Post by asrl07 »

Mystara wrote: 09 Mar 2022, 15:41 Is it bias, or is it just imperfect balance?
To me, bias implies a wilful desire. An imperfect balance, on the other hand, could simply arise because it's fundamentally very difficult to say (especially in advance) whether two quests are equally hard. Add the fact that the quests had a predetermined path to the equation and a badly performing team could win through sheer luck. That doesn't mean there's a bias though (to my mind, anyway).
The bias as I see it comes from a combination of the number of riddles and how many "hurry up" dangers they encounter. It seems to me that a lot of teams fail from getting an insufficient number of riddles correct, and in doing so fail to obtain either a useful clue or magic. In the former case, they can still succeed with luck, in the latter case they have no chance. It comes across as the producers deciding they want a team to win after a sequence of losses and reduce the riddle solving to make a winning team more likely, and maybe more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt with close encounters with deadly threats (e.g. virtually walking into a cavernwrite but surviving because it appears to be sleepwalking).
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