Hi Drassil,
I have always assumed Winteria was an opportunity the production team seized in December 1990. I know it was snowing heavily in Yorkshire on the weekend of Episode 15 of Series 4, anyway! But it could have been scheduled - possibly Tim trying to get the location shooting done earlier in the production year to give him more time for devising the puzzles than for Series 4? Or perhaps because he felt winter would look more suitable - and of course be less touristed! I remember during our series 4 audition he said there is a lot of preparation in a high tech gameshow (the boatman cropped up in the scenarios for both the series 3 and series 4 auditions, so it was no surprise to encounter the boatman in series 4).
Locations, characters, puzzles from other series? I have some tentative preferences.
I would have liked some continuity with some of the passageways/cliffs of Series 1-3, although rooms such as the pool room and those with snakes and scorpions feel dated now.
The forest scenes from Series 5, including the horse - there were a good variety and it would have padded out the forests in Series 4 a bit more. Possibly the dwarf tunnels from Series 6.
Smirkenoff introducing the quest - quest object, information about the quest (possibly the opposition - the spyglass was overused in my opinion) en route to the first location. Replace the spyglass in Level 2 with some sort of viewing pool perhaps.
Possibly some sort of henchman for Mogdred such as Skarkill - although perhaps a larger goblin, with at least three goblins in toe, would have been even better.
Sylvester Hands - perhaps in the inn, and in Level 2.
Stiletta and Gundrada seem pretty well interchangeable to me (same for Folly and Gretel). I always liked Mrs Grimwold and the 'dog' sounds when Series 3 was broadcast, also Olaf the viking and Bumptious the dwarf were quite entertaining at the time.
That's only three definites then: Sir Hugh de Witless' horse, Smirkenoff and Sylvester Hands.
The later puzzles seem to coalesce around the Causeways, Play Your Cards Right and Trial by Spikes. I think it was a sensible production idea to have puzzles that could be simply altered by changing the symbols. But I have no strong preference either way.
Other ideas - I would have liked some of the timing/positioning puzzles from series 1-3 to have been re-set in the forest, using computer graphics of course. Character interactions seem to me to boil down to flattery, bribery and deception - or mere entertainment for viewers at home - too often, whereas for me transactions of a trading nature would have improved the gameplay. Incidentally, someone said Mellisandre's dialogue was pointless and Mistress Goody mumbled gibberish (episode 15). And, functionally speaking, that may be so. But - as Tim said to me at the time - it was important to make the show entertaining for viewers, as well as functional in terms of the quest challenges. Such dialogues - including Merlin's "There's nothing to fear" - seem to have had a chiaroscuro effect of deepening the shadows and the forthcoming drama (assassin, conveyor belt, Lord Fear), as well as providing light {sic} relief between challenges (whether or not that was Tim's conscious intention).
Finally, the Eye Shield could have been more dynamic - e.g. by putting the shortlisted teams together in a forest (say Sherwood as it's fairly central) and film (three) navigational tasks. The sequence that will go into the show is chosen at random - a team member draws a card. Now this would have been fair given that if the team performs all navigational tasks successfully, they have no worries. It would also have helped the production team (to some degree) to plan quest lengths. Ditto for a castle (or dwarf tunnel set) for Level 2. Caves for Level 3 (borrowing slightly from the end of Series 6, as I recall). And, perhaps, a flight simulator for Smirkenoff. I always felt there was the potential to portray journeys through mountains (outside of them) on Knightmare more extensively - they tended to be used mainly for atmospherics, on the horizon.
Thanks again for your interest in my reflections on our quest (in 2017!) Drassil, and best wishes,
Brett
