Series 5

[Lord_Bob]

The producers were forced to put in stuff like Eye Shield to get quests to progress quicker but I find that completely untrue. If anything they are slow and tedious and the eye shield brings nothing to the game.

[Dan]

can't remember if they go out side in level 3

Winteria?

(more spoiler space even though GG has a spoiler warning at the very top anyway)












With only two teams getting to level 3 this series, and it being a completely different style of level 3 each time, it's difficult to really get a sense of there being "a" level 3.  Would've been interesting to see if there were just the two scenarios that alternated...

[Malefact]

Whilst I agree that series 5 is slow and there are things from earlier series that I miss, there is an awful lot of innovation in this series. The Opposition was completely changed and a lot of characters introduced - some of which would stay until the very end. The only other series to do that was series 3; a series that many of us believe to be the best of the lot.

I think it's only because of the subsequent series that we believe that series 5 is not that brilliant. Get rid of series 6-8, though, and series 5 seems a lot better.

[Brangwen]

Y'know I'll be honest, I don't actually like Lord Fear that much, he's alright I guess, but I don't get that same scary impact I did with Mogdred.

Gah, Elita reminded me of the lack of Wall Monsters *sniff* I loved Wall Monsters back in the earlier series, and it allowed the Dungeoneers and Advisors to actually USE their knowledge.

[Lord_Bob]

Wall monsters are much better than blockers. Lord Fear is good but I like Mogred equally

[Cull]

The focus seems to have shifted to interaction with the NPCs characters, while in earlier series it was more "This is the Block and Tackle. Try not to die." If they'd still had the Bomb Rooms from Series 1-3, I think just about every team would have died. "You are in a room. There is a bomb. The fuse is lit. The fuse is burning. It's still burning. It's getting pretty short now, maybe you should move..." *BOOM*) Character interaction is nice and all, but after watching Series 2 and 3, Series 5 just bores me. Except fir the Corridor of Blades of course. Nobody could find THAT boring! The causeways are somewhat disappointing, since without the timer there's not really much sense of immediate danger or urgency.

Hehe... far too true about the "Bomb Room" suggestion! It does seem that the teams like to stroll their way through the puzzles... perhaps that's why so many die on puzzles that need agility and quick thinking like the CoB, B&T and Causeways - they're able to take things more laid back as a whole throughout the dungeon, so when the quick wits are needed the teams aren't ready (if they'd ever be!). Flipside to earlier seasons, and you find dungeoneers nigh on sprinting their way through some areas (or at least sprinting as fast as you would blindfolded!).

Season 5 is one I've wanted to watch in particular, seeing as I missed a lot of it by having swimming lessons after school on Fridays (though I'd end up catching at least the last 10 minutes or so, which wasn't too bad). However, I can't help but feel I wasn't missing much. A lot of the areas aren't up to much (woodland areas not too bad, but can't say I like the village areas). And groovy as Smirky may be in later seasons, I can't help but feel that he's another extension to the eye shield's nature of "filling up quality questing time with yet another prefilmed sequence". If I wanted to see all this nice scenery so much, I'd whip out my British Heritage membership and head up for Leeds Castle myself!

Just a word to all you people who don't like Pickle - I can see where you're getting at, but I'd rather have him than Little Miss "Oooh, I hate zis game"!

[Purgatory]

i never was a big fan of te flights but i quite like them now lol.

The problem is you seem to want action.  rarther than the whole feel of the knightmare experience within each quest.   I don't S5 better than 4.  but still a little flat. not as dark as it should be.  Wall monsters where always one of the best (s3)  s4 doors was the most annoying things.. and these blockers a nice and short...

Talking of s5 level 3... this past episode.. did we see the team take stairs UP??  ummm what happend about going deeper down

[Elita]

The producers were forced to put in stuff like Eye Shield to get quests to progress quicker but I find that completely untrue. If anything they are slow and tedious and the eye shield brings nothing to the game.

Yup, it just seems to be an excuse to use lots of pre-recorded sequences. (with weird colours) Sometimes I wish they'd just kept thinks inside the dungeon like in Series 1-3. Then again, they wouldn't have been able to use Wolfenden or the tavern.

Gah, Elita reminded me of the lack of Wall Monsters *sniff* I loved Wall Monsters back in the earlier series, and it allowed the Dungeoneers and Advisors to actually USE their knowledge.

Yeah, I miss them too. I liked the way the help they gave you was measured by amount of correct answers, instead of the way it works in Series 4-5. (the amount of right answers doesn't seem to matter as long as you get one right)

[Lord_Bob]

Also with it being so easier and more pre-filmed, even lousy teams quests can take over 30minutes because of the Smirky flight, eye shield and lack of urgency. I mean they let off team 3 on the arrow mistake despite a REALLY obvious clue from Treguard. I lot of the time I got the impression that some teams in this series would die on Level 1 in S3

[Purgatory]

have you noticed before the eye shield screen comes up and the team are thinking about going towards a different door towards been recored.. pickle tends to point out the 'other excit'   kinda off if they advise him to walk of the stairs and the eye shield shows them going into a hidden door lol

[Morghanna]

Having completed a run thru series 5, i thought i would consider some general points.
Before series 5 was originally broadcast, way back in 1991, i had hoped that the eye-shield would have been dropped after S4 as an idea that didn't really work, but sadly there it still was....
In S5 with further sweeping changes, the last links to the original program had all-but gone. Treguard still remained, of course, but even his character seemed to have modified to an extent.

The biggest change was the introduction of a new arch-villain and sadly i felt that it didn't work at all. The earlier antagonists Mogdred, Morghanna (and even maybe Malice) had an arthurian-legend feel which seemed to fit in with the original concept so nicely. Lord Fear was more like a creation from a cheap pantomime. This is no criticism of the acting of Mark Knight, who gave it plenty of enthusiam, but i felt that the character was simply wrong from the start.
This seemed to be the general trend of S5. Between series 2,3 & 4 there had been changes to the cast and some great characters departed, but each time the producers created wonderful replacements. In S5 however, many of the new characters simply fell flat.
Sir Hugh didn't really seem to have much point.
Pixel quickly became samey and fortunately didn't appear later on in the series.
Aesandre was rather bland and didn't have anywhere near as much menace and impact as Malice, let alone Morghanna.
The most tedious of the new characters was Skarkill, a totally cardboard character.

Rayner Bourton did far better with his portrayal of the shifty Scaramonger. His improvised patter had some great lines, even more so considering he had to deal with several rather passive dungeoneers. Sly Hands got better as the series progressed.
For me the pick of the new characters was Elita, the stroppy cavern-elf who needed handling with tact. She combined the fiery character of Lady Velda with the abusiveness of Cedric and really gave dungeoneers some serious attitude, not all of which was undeserved. Stephanie Hesp really seemed to get into this character.

Thankfully there were some familiar faces. Motley was back in good form, Brother Mace returned in style and Hordriss was even more grand and pompous than ever.

The look of the series changed as well. Sadly the corridor of blades seldom appeared and seemed to be used simply to terminate teams who had fallen into losing status.
The causeways were a nice addition and really tested teams directional movement.
The spy-glass scenes in the "clue-rooms" (clue-areas?) seemed to provide clues easily and were less challenging than the traditional three-questions scenario.

The pace of the program, which had dropped-off in S4, seemed to get even slower. The eye-shield sequences were getting excessively long, to the point of being shameless padding. The dragon sequences looked great, but slowed down the game even further....

The array of teams was good tho. A couple of teams were very competent and some of the other teams were very entertaining.

In the '90s, i slowly lost interest in Knightmare from S5 onwards. At the time i assumed that i had simply outgrown the program (i was 17 when S5 arrived) but looking back it seems that from S5 there was a clear shift by the producers to aim the program at a younger audience. (Consider the introduction of Lord Fear in particular.) This could explain the fact that in middle-age i still really like S1-3 (and to a point S4) but find the later series disappointing.