Ah, fortunately, I have expertise with this team.
avenueroad wrote: ↑01 Feb 2017, 14:13
When Dunstan encountered him at the Marblehead Junction, it seemed that the team had ignored Treguard's warning.
Not really.
We were told that magic doesn't work on him. By drinking a potion we'd be using magic on ourselves.
It therefore seemed like a legitimate response when faced with a threat.
avenueroad wrote: ↑01 Feb 2017, 14:13
When the advisors instructed Dunstan to open the bottle, Treguard continued to warn and with that failing, Snapper Jack had to convince the dungeoneer not to.
Having rewatched it just now, Treguard's second warning comes simultaneously with Snapper Jack's "no no no".
avenueroad wrote: ↑01 Feb 2017, 14:13
Did the producton crew act to prevent the Palladin bottle from being opened at the wrong time?
In the sense that they somehow physically stopped us opening the bottle, or reshot the sequence, no.
In the sense that they gave us a clue not to try using the bottle, once we announced our intentions, yes. Because if they didn't, winning or losing would have devolved into complete luck. A legitimate response to an encounter would have been punished for no reason whatsoever. Whilst that did happen in early series, it was something they were trying to move away from.
avenueroad wrote: ↑01 Feb 2017, 14:13
In Dunstan's quest, the production crew I believe had to use every pull out all the stops to make sure that the team did not enter 'losing status' at that point. The production crew could not afford to kill off teams at certain times like in the middle of the final episode of each season for example.
Firstly, this isn't the final episode of the season. There's another episode after it.
Secondly, the production team do introduce a new team in the middle of the final episode of the season. So they clearly weren't trying to avoid that.
Thirdly, if it was their intention to avoid having us open the bottle, they've presented it in a very clunky manner. They could have cut straight to the questions rather than showing us nearly opening the bottle.
Fourthly, this isn't the sort of thing that losing status (such as it is*) would have been applied to, because (IMO) it was a legitimate response.
Paranoia on our part (we were in level 3 after all), but hardly an unforgivable response.
* I think people set far too much store by the concept of "losing status" and are interpreting Tim's comments on the issue as some kind of formalised rules system. I think the underlying mechanism is as simple as balancing fair gameplay with good tv. If a team was going to die, it would be done in such a way that it made for good tv. If the team somehow exonerated themselves during that time, they would be given a reprieve.