What went wrong with Knightmare?
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Tim Child says he preferred the later seasons because he thought the early ones were very slow. Considering there were seven teams in season 7, and six teams in a half-length season 1, I find that hard to agree with. NO quest in Knightmare lasted over an hour until season 5.
After reading the interview from Tim Child I think he meant it was quicker after Series 5 because they did role-play testing during the auditions to ensure only suitable teams made the game. He probably meant that earlier series suffered from very bad teams that might of slowed things down (Resulting in a lot of editing that we do not see perhaps?) and not about how long quests actually took. Teams in later seasons perhaps made it furthur simply because they were good and not because things were made easier.
Perhaps Tim Child got fed up of having to start a new quest almost every episode like in series 3 and wanted more teams to get into the last levels so that some more rooms could be shown instead of the same ones?
I don't think anything went wrong as such with Knightmare because as it says in numerous places there is a limitation to what you can do with hand drawn rooms and trying new things is the only way to keep an audience interested. I don't think anyone would've liked 8 series that were just variants of series 3!
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I am a fan of each and every season, nothing went 'wrong' as such, each season is merely different and therefore tastes differ within the community.
Each seaosn has bits where it could be better, yet each season also has something which none other has, I just find S3 that little bit more well rounded, yet like all of the others equally.
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After reading the interview from Tim Child I think he meant it was quicker after Series 5 because they did role-play testing during the auditions to ensure only suitable teams made the game. He probably meant that earlier series suffered from very bad teams that might of slowed things down (Resulting in a lot of editing that we do not see perhaps?) and not about how long quests actually took.
I think if that's what he meant he would have said, "The teams were better in later years." They probably were, but I still see a lamentably high number of locations in the later years where there was nothing happening. To speed things up (if that really happened) they appeared to remove most of the obstacles and puzzles, so allowing the dungeoneer to get to the portals more quickly. The problem is that approach defeated the object of the exercise, because it made the show LESS exciting, not more so. (Where's the challenge in walking to a door?)
No one's suggesting that KM should've had the same locations year-after-year-after-year. And they were right to move on from the hand-paintings altogether. But the dark ENVIRONMENT of caverns and dungeons should have remained. Taking things outside into the open air was a serious error as it made the show look very saccharine.
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The tension in Km a result of confounding Fight Or Flight. A blindfolded person was put into a 'dangerous' situation and they could do neither. Consequently, this made for stressful viewing. Additionally, being inside a dingy Dungeon with a creepy 'deserted' feel helped matters because there was nowhere to run to. In a forest (which is a much more familiar environment to us) there is everywhere to run to.
This is where giving the Dungeoneer vision might threaten to erode things somewhat. Not being able to see is a direct link to the Fear Of The Dark. And why do people go on rollercoasters? Because we love being scared. In controlled doses, it's exciting and exhilirating. And witnessing it is almost as effective as experiencing it first-hand.
This is why Km works. It flirts with our fundamental fears in the creation of exhiliration. If the Dungeoneer can see, Fight or Flight will be dimmed slightly. Therefore, the game must allow for this in order to counter it. The Dungeoneer must not be allowed to run away. Remember the rune puzzle in series 8 when a troll was coming but the Dungeoneer couldn't run? Classic tension-building due to the good old "run! run! run!" instinct.
As long as all this is remembered and applied in the new series, it will be the classic Km we all know and love.
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I should like to stress at this point that I still loved Knightmare more than practically any other show on TV, even when it wasn't working so well. I know I don't give that impression sometimes, it's just I do feel quite strongly about some of the unnecessary changes that were introduced.
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I haven't seen series 2 and have only seen the first two episode of series 1 (I've recorded the third and shall watch it later), so Series 3 is all I can base my comments on the earlier series upon.
It may simply be because they were the ones I saw originally on CITV, but I prefer the later series. The characters were far better and more developed (they included the two best-acted characters of all, Lord Fear and Sylvester Hands), as were the plots. There was much less of a get-past-this-obstacle-and-now-this-one feel and more scope for role-playing (better capitalised on by some dungeoneers than by others). I liked the mixture of computer-generated and filmed scenery. I liked Treguard's assistants. I don't believe the obstacles were any easier, there were just fewer of them, to make time for the extra acting, spyglass sequences etc. which added so much.
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I agree on that point. There were far less obstacles, yet the actual RP context came into play more.
It made the game more entertaining, yet again, at times it did make it feel less of a threat to life....The extra context added, however, made the game, overall, feel a lot more realistic for me.
Lord Fear gave the show an awful lot, too.
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But the dark ENVIRONMENT of caverns and dungeons should have remained. Taking things outside into the open air was a serious error as it made the show look very saccharine.
Quote by HStorm
This is very true. A lot of tension was lost from the open environment, and sometimes the outside eyeshield sequences seemed to drag on forever. If there's anything good I can think about the outside environment of the later series its that it provides a sense of reality to the whole adventure. There's some enjoyment to the idea that inside Hedingham castle there's a causeway! It gives compulsive viewers like me an opportunity to say 'I've been there'
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Personally, I feel that the early series were meaner (in a good way) and were far more gripping to watch. There was definitely a 'no mercy' policy at work there, whereas latterly all sorts of allowances were made. For example, being helped by Gwendoline even without giving the right answers and making up 'convincing-sounding' (but wrong) answers to give to the Brollachan.
I hated it when Treguard consoled a series 8 losing team with these words as well:
"Magic would have helped you with this very difficult puzzle..."
Why not just just tell them off for not guiding their dungeoneer properly and be done with it?!
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