Series 4 - Episode 16

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Fidjit
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Re:Series 4 Team 8

Post by Fidjit »

This is to be discussed in the episode column guys, we have to keep things simple... Easier finding :)
If the only way is onward how would you get home for tea?? :-/
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Re:Series 4 Team 8

Post by Malefact »

Well, technically the Episode section is for specific episode discussion. This thread is about a team as opposed to a particular episode, so there's no problem with it being here.

If anyone has any problems, please Instant Message either Illusion, Kieran or myself. Otherwise, please carry on as before.
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Re:Series 4 Team 8

Post by DazzaS »

Do we have any idea how the team felt. Did they ever say. Is it possible to fimd out. I guess the only person who really knows how many rooms were left is TC. But surely they must have been warned before their adventure began they may not make it, but to be so close they deserve something- Barry in seris 7 did after al, unles that is because they learnt from their mistake in this seris.
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Re:Series 4 Team 8

Post by ross »

Well if you watch the program the team were very chessed off about it.

This also happened in series 3, and series 5 for sure but that time they were only in level 2.

And if you look at series 4 guide and look at the rooms in level 3, you will see that there could have only been 3 or 4 rooms left at the most.
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Re:Series 4 Team 8

Post by Fidjit »

Apologies lads ;)
If the only way is onward how would you get home for tea?? :-/
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Re:Series 4 Team 8

Post by Pipmuk »

It's one of those problems which you will rip your hair out until you get a response from Tim Child himself (read: never).

If you want to let your mind at rest, just presume they got knocked out on the transporter pad and ran into the big FrightKnight.

On a side note, I wonder what would have happened if they did? Would the dungeoneer have died? And if so, what would the animation have been?
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Re:Series 4 Episode 16

Post by dontyoulikemypie »

Hi, I don't have challenge but recorded series 3-8 of Knightmare when they originally aired and this episode was one of my favourites. The way the last team are sort of allowed to blunder through the last chambers because it doesn't really matter either way is fabulous!
And as for the end credits, again fantastic, particularly the way Gundrada's sword becomes the Broadsword productions sword when it flies out of her hands!
10/10
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Re:Series 4 Episode 16

Post by Billy »

Already done a long recap for this, so here's just a few notes.

I've decided that the joker incident was a genuine mistake. It's unlikely that Mace would deliberately try and give them the wrong card, as he's a goodie, and the team would easily notice it anyway. Also, as has been said multiple times, he glances at the production crew off screen after he finds it. Notice that the card he first picks is on the bottom of the pack, while the Joker is on the top...might it have been a prank from the crew, telling him that the joker's on the bottom? What we need is a Michael Cule interview to find out!

This team were one of the most unfortunate in Knightmare's history. They'd braved blades, block and tackles, crumbling bridges, and seemed like they were easily going to tackle the transporter pad room (which for some reason has a bunch of white lines at the top of the closeup of Giles' legs), but it was too late. If they'd have been Team 7 they'd have easily done it in time...what's particularly painful is that they were on the Quest for the Cup, which no one ever won!

I imagine that after the Transporter Pad room they'd have got a spell from somewhere, then Mogdred would have appeared, they'd use the spell on him, destroying him (giving him a fitting ending), then Dooreen, then the Cup. That's based on Dickon's quest, anyway - I personally would have had Dooreen first, then Mogdred, as defeating a baddy followed by a Door Monster seems a bit of an anticlimax.

That's the end of Series 4, then. Tomorrow sees the start of Series 5...not sure if I'm going to bother commenting on them this time, as I've already done most of the episodes, though I definitely will for episode 8 as I missed it the first time. Unless I miss it again.
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Re:Team 8 series 4 ..were they robbed?

Post by Selphie »

This is an exciting episode, very action packed. My initial thoughts on the CoB was that they were clipped by one, but happy they survived.

It seems that pretty much all the teams enter the block and tackle room at a 45 degree angle. Maybe this was done on purpose to see how they coped with it, it certainly made things interesting!

I've really enjoyed series 4 :). While I do remember parts of series 3, it was from 4 onwards that I vividly remember what happened and I admit I'm a heathen, I really prefer the outside locations; the forests, the castles complete with crazy colours and I think the eye-shield sequences were a brilliant idea, the whole dungeon world felt bigger and the quests more epic. Series 1-3 and 8 (level 1) feel so much more claustrophobic by comparison. I can see however, if you adored S1-3 why you'd feel slightly betrayed by the direction the programme took.

I think that S4 suffered from some of the technology being new, I felt that the backgrounds for S5 and 6 looked a lot nicer because they weren't so pixelated and the colours weren't so bright.

The introduction of Pickle worked well (other than when he entered the dungeon, which was just a bit weird becuase it give the impression you could just teleport around the place, which made me think, why do you have to spend all this time working towards level 3 if you could just zap yourself there?..). It allowed Treguard to remain relatively neutral but with Pickle there it too the edge of the harshness off. I think it made the clues and advice the advisers were given more even across the teams, even if we were sick of hearing the same lines over and over. I think a lot of that is made worse by watching episodes closer together, rather than having to wait a week between them like back in the day ;)

Roll on series 5 ;D
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Re:Team 8 series 4 ..were they robbed?

Post by HStorm »

I'm watching episode 16 of season 4 right now, and I have to say, I've come to regard it as near as dammit the worst episode of Knightmare ever made. There is almost nothing in it that wasn't in several previous episodes in the season, and much that was in almost every episode; Treguard yet again gives his "if only you can find the way down to level 3" speech when the staircase is directly in front of the dungeoneer, Mogdred repeats his "There will be no interference" etc speech that he previously gave to team 1, almost word-for-word, and in exactly the same place, the dungeoneer is issued a joker from a pack of playing cards, there's the walk through Dunkley Wood to Ariadne's Lair, the ride with the boatman of Dunswater to the Tower of Time, the Transporter pads, reward in the circular room for fulfilling a prior bargain, yada yada yada...

Even by the appalling self-derivative standards of season 4, it's so dreary and predictable. In fact, I'm starting to wonder whether the scripted dialogue in season 4 was all done by a lazy hack writer. Terry Nation springs to mind.

Furthermore, what isn't predictable is almost worse because it's so childish. Motley's 'professional mockery' of Ariadne is as badly-contrived an idea as the series ever had, but made all the worse by his jokes being so excruciatingly lame. "Look in the mirror and murder yourself!" Yeah, good one, Mot, I'll have to write that one down :-\.

I was almost howling, "FOLLY!!! FOLLYYYYYYYYYY!!! WHERE ARE YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUU?!?!?! GET BACK HERE QUICK!! FOLLLLLYYYYYYYYYY!!!!" I mean at least most of the lines in the Insults To The Death challenge with Cedric were funny.

And of course, need I even mention the long-derided and embarrassing swansong of Merlin's Dungeon career, the Christmas celebration? :-X

The only entertainment value in the episode comes from Brother Mace's goof-up with the playing cards, which the crew deserve no credit for as it's something that went wrong, and from the team's panic-riddled handling of the Corridor of Blades and the Block And Tackle. (Even there it's annoying, because this was just the first example of a team getting away with being hit on the CoB.)

Perhaps it's fitting that such a limited, unimaginative season should bow out in such a limp way, but it doesn't make it any less tedious to sit through. Awful, just awful.
Last edited by HStorm on 15 Dec 2008, 22:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:Team 8 series 4 ..were they robbed?

Post by PookasRule »

Did anyone notice that immediately before the confrontation with when Motley and the dungeoneer were talking Ariadne was just standing silently behind Motley waiting patiently for him to finish before she attacked? I thought it was quite uncharacteristic of her to be honest.
Last edited by Anonymous on 15 Dec 2008, 22:33, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:Team 8 series 4 ..were they robbed?

Post by HStorm »

Oh indeed. The same phenomenon we were discussing on another thread a couple of days back - the 'guard-waits-and-counts-to-fifty-before-attacking-for-no-discernible-reason' phenomenon.

If the team don't have the appropriate spell/clue object, of course, the guard/monster will attack at very high speed. So fast, in fact, that the team wouldn't have enough time to cast the spell even if they had it...
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Re: Series 4 - Episode 16

Post by Maud »

Brett writes:

On entering Level 3 we were faced with the swinging axe challenge. This lasted about five minutes with Giles moving extremely carefully and getting nearly halfway through before the axe stopped - either due to the production team stopping a loop or the animation sequence finishing. We offered to tackle it again but the production team were adamant it was impossible.

The corridor of blades was done in one take, possibly with some extra filming of Giles. It's difficult to judge distances when you have a 3D image superimposed onto a 2D one, e.g. when trying to determine whether Giles narrowly missed the blade or was clipped.

I think it was sometime after this scene - or possibly just before it - that the producer announced that he'd recalled our backup team with "So don't make any [more?!] mistakes!".

The block and tackle (we didn't know it had this name until we watched an earlier episode of the series) was done in two takes. In my view it's unfairly hard and significantly dependant on the angle and speed of entry - under the direction of the floor manager; I don't know how many takes the winning team were given.

It's difficult to know whether we would have completed the quest, bearing in mind the entertainment value of apparently stacking up the action scenes in Level 3 for the end of the series. Similarly we made what the producer termed a 'boo-boo' on Level 1 but I maintain the particular challenge wasn't the best ('Throw a spanner in the works' but we were looking in vain for the 'works'!) and - perhaps in recognition of that - the producer said they always allow one of those on Level 1 anyway.

We did complete the tranporter room! It took a long time for Giles to reappear.

The producer said he thought there were four scenes left; that he'd have to check the plan (although he didn't get back to us about it again). I'd like to know what the TINY spell was for.

I didn't mind not completing the quest. I was glad to have been spared the indignity of losing and we had lots of fun over the four days of recording (there were long breaks between most of the scenes). I think the rest of the team had similar sentiments.
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Re: Series 4 - Episode 16

Post by Drassil »

Brett wrote:The block and tackle (we didn't know it had this name until we watched an earlier episode of the series) was done in two takes. In my view it's unfairly hard and significantly dependant on the angle and speed of entry - under the direction of the floor manager; I don't know how many takes the winning team were given.
Possibly none. If what we saw in the finished episode was the full story, Series 4's winning team never took on the Block and Tackle - one of two Series 4 teams to be exempt from an obstacle that spelt the end for three others.
Brett wrote:I didn't mind not completing the quest. I was glad to have been spared the indignity of losing and we had lots of fun over the four days of recording (there were long breaks between most of the scenes). I think the rest of the team had similar sentiments.
It's good that you regard your Knightmare experience in that light. Even the most ardent fan surely wouldn't want you lying awake at night muttering "we were robbed" over and over! You certainly weren't the only Knightmare team to have its quest cut off by the end of a series, but a few things set your team apart from those others and might explain why it was such a bitter blow not to see you claim victory. You were well into Level 3; you showed so much enthusiasm for your quest ("Go Giles go!" during the Level 1 'Dash' scene being one of my highlights); the characters you encountered were on great form (Brother Mace's playing card mishap is wonderful to watch); and you got lumbered with the Christmas scene, which for so many fans was really not in keeping with the spirit of Knightmare. From {what Giles has told us}, you lot didn't particularly like it either!
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Re: Series 4 - Episode 16

Post by Maud »

Brett writes:

Thank you very much for your encouragements, Drassil!

I suppose what I put about not minding does reflect how we all felt at the time of the recording.

Reflecting on it now with your help and that of others on the forum, the "you do want to be home for Christmas, don't you boys?" does seem a bit redolent of a public school of a bygone era. Maybe we should have said "Surely, Santa Claus - sorry, Merlin, we're not going to miss Christmas if we stay here another fifteen minutes or so to complete our quest, are we?!".

Also selective cutting of less action-packed moments might have enabled us to complete the quest on screen time - just like when the production team cut four minutes or so from our time on the Spindizzy room in episode 14.

But if Christmas isn't in keeping with the spirit of Knightmare, can we describe what that spirit is? Or was it just the way Christmas was handled?
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