Behind the Scenes

In the early series, there seems to have been a definitive, specific, laid out path. An item was used in a particular location and if you didn't have the item (for whatever reason) when it was needed then you died. The problem is that this lead to the situation where you can do badly in the clue room and still get through the dungeon by being lucky with your selection of items. On the other hand, if you did well, picked up exactly the right items, but missed a clue (or didn't understand the advice given) you were certainly dead. So bad teams could progress and good teams could fail, and it wasn't necessarily clear why. Later series seem to have eased up on this and there always seems to have been an alternative approach available for taking the wrong items (at least in level 1).

[The Present Day. At the home of Scott, veteran dungeoneer of Series 3, his baby son has pulled himself up from the floor and is holding onto the sofa.] Scott's Wife: Quick, I think he's about to start walking. Get the camera! [Scott runs out. But by the time he's returned with the camera, the baby has already walked.] Scott: Oh no, I missed the first step! [Looks into the camera.] Like that's never happened before. [Winks.] Scott's Wife: What? (With apologies to Scott and to any real-life wives and children he may have.) Truth is stranger than fiction... At Knightmare Live on Monday, a few of us met Scott and chatted with him. He does have a real-life wife and child. He told us how he watched Knightmare with his daughter, but left it a surprise that he was on it. Scott is a lovely guy and very appreciative of all the fans who actively help to keep Knightmare alive.

An episode of Starstrider can be seen here: https://youtu.be/zgGT_gKuakM. Funnily enough, I had no memory of it when Canadanne mentioned it earlier, but I do now dimly remember watching a few episodes of it. At the time, I associated McCoy only with Tiswas and Jigsaw, so it had to be before he became the 7th Doctor, although I didn't recall the series being as early as 1984; if pressed I'd have said about 1986 or 87. Roger Sloman is the host, and you might recognise him from plenty of TV in the 1980s and 90s, especially playing bureaucratic, by-the-book types, or yokelly farmer figures. Remember Three Fingered Pete from the sixth episode of The Black Adder? "Good shot! Looks like I'm going to have to... cheat." That was him. The odd thing about Starstrider in this episode is that he looks like he's wearing Lord Fear's cloak, while, unfortunate sign of the times, blacking up as Ah Wok! Another sign of the times is the kids in the audience laughing much too loudly under clear instruction from the floor manager whenever something silly happens. Notice how the contestant on the bucking buffalo gets away with saying The Rocky Mountains are in South Africa, then changing it to South America, and she is still given the point, even though the Rockies are of course in NORTH America. The only regular round I can remember is the one where the have to walk on the lit up slabs. Step on a pink slab you score ten points, step on a white one you lose ten. The only other thing I very vaguely remember for some reason is a scene in one instalment where Wart (SlyMac's character) tries to find a purpose for a toffee apple, and Starstrider tries to explain that Wart has to "put it in himself," which seems decidedly naughty for a kids' show. They come from a planet where no one eats, where eating is a completely abstract concept, and so Wart spends the whole show experimenting with stuffing the stick up his nose, and in other places, before inadvertently eating the apple and finding he rather likes the sensation of taste. In short, not a terribly good show. And no, getting actually to the point; I have no memory at all of ANY episode I saw in which someone fell into lava. But then I doubt that I saw all the episodes, it wasn't exactly the highlight of my viewing week.

I think you're right about us not having discussed those articles on the forum before, but there have been links to them on the website (Series 2 Team 5 page) since 2013/2014.

It's very good of Anthony to contribute his experiences. These recollections from behind-the-scenes are very interesting to those of us who only ever saw Knightmare from the sofa. It's notable that he mentions problems with his earpiece. Several dungeoneers, particularly Ross in S3, seemed to have difficulties hearing their advisors.

Vice.com recently published an online article featuring interviews with Jason Karl (Series 2) and Oliver Hilton (Series 8 ), asking them how it felt to emerge victorious after appearing on Knightmare. You can read the full article by clicking here: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/meeting-the-winners-of-knightmare-the-dark-souls-of-childrens-tv-615

That looks very interesting. Wonder if some of that would be used in a new series if a new series happened. Would be cool to find out the plans that were in place if the teams were not killed off when they were.

I don't remember Giles falling off the Spindizzy, although it took around 5 minutes including Treguard's introduction and was drastically cut due to the timing on episode 14; I think Giles' recollection of being pulled up by the producer related to 'throwing a spanner in the works' when he lobbed the spanner across the studio at the last minute, as we were looking for the 'works' into which to throw the spanner. That's when the producer said they always allow one 'Level one boo-boo'. But on neither occasion were the rest of the team annoyed with Giles, or indeed at any other time. It seems sometimes you were wrong for overthinking it on the game ('I don't think you'll find much help from the chest, Brett') while also sometimes wrong if you didn't think enough, or a very similar way to the author ... That's always been the trouble with all these games - role playing, text-based adventure games, as I see it.

During our audition for series 4, the producer said they had a budget of £1m. That works out as more money per episode than the £480k for series 8, even given that there were more episodes.

And a happy easter to you too sir And indeedly so. I did feel they got handed it on a silver platter with not having the Block and Tackle obsticle. And compared to your experiences in the Corridor of Blades the technique Giles utilised halfway through is most likely the better way of surviving it. Personally I have said before elsewhere that I reckon they should allow the last team from the previous one to return and have another attempt at completing the dungeon again. Only problems I see with that is, they'd have to do it all over again, and secondly you'd probably have fallen for what I've known it to be called "First Team Fever." I don't think I need to explain that terminology, I'm sure it's easy to figure what I meant

She was a true gem! So lively and very very friendly. Gems and goblins don't always go together, as a certain Series 3 team found to their cost... That is very true. Still, one of my better memories from the con, if only because she caused a mild 'Oh my word, really?' reaction from me. I'm pretty proud that I didn't do my usual thing of freezing up and going all shy.

Whoa, Canadanne! That's brilliant; way better than my feeble notes!

Mark Cordory, the man who gave us Smirkenorff recently posted on the Facebook page a link to his gallery of puppet creations, some of the shots featured display Smirky in action. The link below will take you to the relevant gallery: http://www.markcordory.com/Site/Galleries/Pages/Puppets_%26_Costumes.html Also, be sure to explore Mark's site in full by visiting http://www.markcordory.com

During the scenes in Lil(l)ith's cavern I swear I can hear the sound of some of the computers in The Hitchhiker's Guideo to the Galaxy TV series.

That's what happens when you've been away from this place for too long I know that for sure cos I started growing a beard Fair dos man...

I remember one in Season 5 where there was an advisor who was over-reacting a bit when a blocker appeared but if you listened very closely you could hear Treguard say "shut up" under his breath XDDDDDD

Thanks for the info! And thanks again for your best wishes

Tim Child (to dungeoneer): I'm going to demonstrate this strange block here, this is how I want you to fall off it... Dungeoneer (Simon from series eight if you must): Whatever for? Tim Child: For your death scene! Cheers for telling the poor kidd how he is going to snuff it. At least in hostage situations you have a rough idea!

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. No going back but not jumping TOO far forward (Nice way of putting it 123pooka ). "Virtual Set" (IE entire room blue screened with motion tracked cameras) setups aren't the latest but would work perfectly in a situation like this. Because it uses existing technology as well, there'll hopefully be less of the technophobia that dogged KMs development in the past. Evolution rather than Revolution. Knightmare and its formula won awards and gained the following it has for a reason and there's little need to mess with what works. Merely spruce it up a little for the modern audience but keep it old skool. It seems that there's all kinds of remakes, revamps and "reboots" of old classic series happening these days. Most keep quite close to the originals for a while before developing characters beyond what we knew of the original. Maybe that would be best for KM? Give us a "Modern" series 1 with all it's back-to-back dangers and then develop much like the first run did? Just as long as a modern series 1 gives us a revamp of the contest of insults, and some rooms which are more along the lines of later developments (The corridor of blades, for example). The vast majority of rooms, imo, should contain a challenge, weather that's a challenge intended to kill for failure or reward for success, and what form that challenge takes, should be open (although, as you said on another thread, a challenge that rewards for success but the reward is the only means of survival four or five rooms down the line makes the period between failure and death seem like filler in retrospect.)

Fascinating stuff Always prefered the original titles