Series 4

This was a rather low-key episode. Team 4 were less than convincing against Dooris, then agreed to a pact with a thinly-disguised Malice. (There's no hiding those rings and fingernails. ) They were helped past Fatilla by Pickle who had gate-crashed the scene to Treguard's displeasure. Oakley let them past without any questions and still gave them full clues. They used the horn to scare off the goblins (strange considering it sounded rather like a goblin horn) and then used the hour-glass to get past the giant lizard into level 2. They released Gundrada from the stocks, where she appears to have a season-ticket. Nice scene with Hordriss, where they had to get her sword "Slash" back from him. Great line from Hordriss: "What a thoroughly nasty, bloodthirsty type you must be. I don't suppose you're looking for employment, are you?" After the dungeoneer (i think he might be called Simon) retrieved her sword, Gundrada guided him thru a shortened version of the corridor of blades. In the next room there was the sound of goblin horns just as time-out arrived. Team 4 seem to have had a very easy ride so far, with no real challenges. It will be interesting to see if their directional movement is up to scratch when they have to react with a bit more urgency....

Team 2 did well against Oakley with 3/3, but they only received one clue, so had to guess between gold & key. Really liked the attitude, "Truth accepted, at long last!" from Oakley when they conferred for too long. They chose the key, but appeared to have guessed wrongly when Fatilla demanded a bribe. They managed to get past him with excessive flattery, which probably made up for the fact that they didn't get the bonus clue they deserved in the first place. Used the aniseed to divert the goblins. They were given the hurry-up by an assassin at the well and got into a massive panic. In level 2 they decided (eventually) to release Gundrada so she could help them. This led to an amusing scene with her and Hordriss, followed by a bizarre scene with her and Fatilla. The team reached Merlin as time ran out. He appears to have given up posing riddles and started selling clue items to teams for gold. Shame on him! The advisors had a tendency to talk simultaneously, which gave Alastair problems on several occasions. He got quite shirty with them about it. Can't say that i blamed him....

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Hi Drassil, Thank you for sharing this scan from The Quest. I suppose both could be true, depending on the precise dates within the same period of history. There's also the rumour circulating that Merlin took a ride on the Transporter Pad, but didn't (or, perhaps, was unable to) return to the middle tile ... Best wishes, Brett

Thanks for your thoughts, Drassil and DuxBellorum! I am sure Tim could have come up with some ways of increasing the difficulty on Level 1 in Series 4 - extra clearings with goblins/assassins/the ogre etc. Corridor of Blades?! That would be more likely if the production team thought we were unlikely to progress very far into Level 2 or 3, and wanted to introduce another team soonish (obviously even more so earlier in the season). Not sure about decreasing it, maybe a clue about throwing a spanner in the works - but I don't think Tim would have done that, even had we got all three questions correct. I take it Hugo was improvising something vague "let's just say ..." to give a sense that everything we did had consequences. It didn't occur to me when we were filming it - until relatively recently in fact - that everything was scripted. Even now I'm not convinced absolutely every word was scripted. Best wishes, Brett

Perhaps the Christmas ending of Series 4 was intended to be a dramatic foil for Lord Fear to appear at the very start of Series 5. After all, Merlin says "There's nothing to fear". As our Level 2 was unusually short (the shortest ever?!) - at least that's my opinion - maybe the Block and Tackle was moved from Level 2 to make the ending more dramatic. Possibly the Transporter Pad room (which we completed successfully, by the way) too - though it shares the same atmospheric background as the Valley of Decision. Stickly strictly to the original plan, then, perhaps the Block and Tackle would have appeared somewhere on Level 2, hopefully with the straight-ahead entry from which all other teams prior to Team 7 benefited. We would have got through that. After the Valley of Decision, we would have had the Transporter Pad room, then the confrontation with Mogdred (patterned on Teams 1 and 6) - where we would have used the TINY spell, followed by the last Weeping Door and then the retrieval of the Cup.

The name, 'Dickon Hares' is correct. I went to school with him at Torquay Boys Grammar School and it was a source of constant jokes back then. I remember him appearing on Knightmare and the team came to our school as well.

A somewhat interesting co-incidence, at least to me, is that our team's visit to the Tower of Time during Episode 16 of Series 4 occurred more-or-less halfway through Knightmare (being at the end of series 4). In this episode, at the 'centre' of Knightmare, we encountered both Merlin (from Series 1, the first series) and the Corridor of Blades (in use up to and including Series 8, the last series) - the Tower of Time then referencing the beginning and ending of the original Knightmare run.

I also really liked the increased interaction with the characters compared with series 3. That's a good point. I never really noticed but just checking out an episode of s3 and then s4, you are right. I think Michael Cule was fantastic the way he interacted with dungeoneers. I guess Tim wanted more character interaction with dungeoneers, may be wrong though!

Some kind of after-school activity? (I have the opposite mystery... I clearly remember watching Series 3 but I've no idea how, as it would have clashed with swimming lessons and I don't recall having to watch it on video later in the evening!)

My personal view on Series 4 is mixed, but it does have some downfalls: Weeping Doors: I HATE those bloody weeping doors. They annoy me one hell of a lot with their none stop crying, Dooris in particular. Level 2: Gundrada usually ends up doing about two thirds of it which can be irritating, as it kind of ruins the idea of having the advisors. I also really don't like Fatilla the Hun. Sure, Olaf was slightly thick but Fatilla the Hun is so stupid it's utterly ridiculous. The last one is that I think it's too slow paced, and can drag on somewhat. That being said, it does have some epic moments: Mogdred brutally killing the first team. "Simon, sidestep to your left!" Merlin talking in opposites and confusing the hell out of the team (and at points me). At first I really didn't like Pickle, but he grew on me and I now quite like him.

Malefact, you're joking? Right?

Yeah i know what u ment.. but it sounded as if no one else had a chance.  After all they could have made any kind of mistake even if they did pass.   But the Dice room was pointless. role a dice and take the right door and a door with an quest icon.. it just wasnt needed. Where in season 4 they had a choice and that there was always a little danger falling off the spin dizzy. The spin dizzy it self caused some amusement.   But the fact that Season 4 not only have an easy 1st level the 3rd wasnt much different.. a couple of nasty looking rooms but over all it was very short, Season 3 level 3 was just much better, a lot longer to

"I'll give you a horn!" "...eh?"

Howdy. Yep. Definitely in agreement. I haven't spotted anything relating to gold or silver in my books as yet, but since you pointed it out, I will keep looking. Yet, payment of some kind was always relatively prominent in many quests - one can understand the average team taking a bar of gold over something else. As for the correct answers / knowledge situation - well.. maybe it's not unfair, but what I'd bicker about is why they were the only team of the series (I suppose I'm wrong, but even if I am, they were amongst the minority) to answer 2 correctly and earn no more clues. All I'd argue is why is wasn't kept the same for everybody - even if it appears blantantly obvious, by adventurers code or otherwise, which objects to take. Yeh, I'm still a bit baffled by the door-monster idea. I'd imagine, as you say, the 'requirements' on each level are more difficult - but it was still far easier having 50 / 50 chances along the way than having to answer two of Merlin's riddles, and then a real stinker of a level 3 riddle to have a chance of winning in S3. (My op. anyhow.   )

Going back to the block and tackle. It seemed to have moved around in the same sequence: Top blocks start moving Bottom left of floor collapsed Middle left of floor collapsed Back end of the room Bottom Block moved to the left. Far left of floor collapsed Near end of the room Bottom Block moved to the left. (the one which killed Vicky when it mowed her down) Far center of floor collapsed As for the rest, I believe either the team were out of the room by that stage, or the braking up skull and rolling eyeballs would've made their appearance!

I missed the date too! Anyway welcome to the forum

Dickens team had a good quest malice was quite harsh with them always chasing it would have been better qith mogdred tho!!!

what about Morghanna then? we didn't see her during season 4, and i think she was at the end of season 3 a couple of time...  i always thought she was  mogdreds partner, and then u have that other woman in season 5   its just crazy stuff i think we may need to out together a 'family tree' kinda thing..

This moral/ethical/political correctness issue is something that crossed my mind the other day when watching the dungeoneer who nearly fell over when stepping on/off the spinning discs. While no one thought much about it at the time, with this 'compensation culture' nowaways and the obsession with health and safety etc, I wonder what people would say about it today.