Did the assistants ruin Knightmare?
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Well, having them there did give Treguard someone to talk to and act with. In series 1/2/3 he did occassionally talk to characters in the game but they didn't provide the occasional bit of comic relief that came later. I don't think it's entirely fair to associate Treguard having assistants with the slow fall-off in tension in the later series (yes, I admit it! There was a bit of a fall-off - but there were still loads of classic moments, like the end of series 7; brilliant episode)
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Hmm, methinks this thread needs moving. Anyway:
Did the assistants ruin Knightmare?
My answer is pretty simple (until I waffle on about it for several paragraphs): No, they didn't.
Treguard was great on his own. But I think so many people neglect to mention the value both Pickle and Majida added to the show:
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Something different. Don't underestimate this- Treguard may have been great on his own, but that dynamic may well have become tired eventually.
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Comic relief: and sometimes, particularly with Majida, in my view, it was fabulous.
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A greater opportunity to narrate and provide background story. The production company edivently decided that background stories and the end of season drama were a good way to go. The assistants allowed them to better pursue this, even if it meant that sometimes mystery was lost. If, like me, you preferred more mystery, blame the production crew, not the assistants or actors who played them. They were just the means.
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Someone younger for kidsies to identify with. Treguard may have been a little frightening for many kids at home to identify with- Pickle and Majida were more like kids themselves sitting and watching the game progress.
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It gave more chance to develop Treguard's character and to see different sides of it, especially as around Series 3 he'd already begun to interact less with the Dungeon.
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It took some of the weight off Hugo Myatt. If you haven't already, take a look at Debz's interviews on this site. From those, it seems Hugo had a horrific time having to constantly learn lines for multitudes of possible situations. Having an assistant, I guess, lessened the burden somewhat. If a reaction to the team's progress (or lack of it) had to be made, at least there were now two possible sources.
Things did change. I think tension did decrease. I think much of the mystery was lost. And I think that by Series 7 there were almost two shows: the Game, as it had always been, and an ongoing soap-opera with end of season extravaganzas prepared for way in advance and ongoing storylines in extended spyglass scenes and such. Sometimes the two sat well together, sometimes they didn't, and I think occasionally the gameplay aspect lost out. But none of these were due to introducing assistants: perhaps they were a means to some of it, but I'd prefer to say that associating them with any malaise is an unfair conflation.
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I'm of the opposite view. Pickle really annoyed the hell out of me and my friend and we made up quite nasty nicknames for him and Treguard (I won't be repeating them, I'm a lot older and wiser now) but I myself had no problem with Majida, I quite liked her actually and thought she was a lot better than Pickle was.
I hope Challenge do show the rest of the series simply to look at the series with Pickle in and to sorta try and work out what annoyed me about him, and if he still does!
Steve
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Well, the introduction of assistants co-incided with the softening-up of the dungeon; going on safari to outside scenes and having far less puzzles. Series 1/2/3 are unique in Km - I like them because of their ruthlessness, scariness and the absolutely gorgeous-looking rooms: going from the green baize room, through a blue dwarf tunnel, to a brown stone room with the snake, to a large red clue room and so on. Very eye-catching. That's why I don't think it's entirely fair to blame it all on the assistants.
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I'm of the opposite view. Pickle really annoyed the hell out of me and my friend and we made up quite nasty nicknames for him and Treguard (I won't be repeating them, I'm a lot older and wiser now) but I myself had no problem with Majida, I quite liked her actually and thought she was a lot better than Pickle was.
I agree. I thought Majida was much funnier. I found some of Pickle's responses a bit bland. In a way it was a bit easier to for DL to introduce Pickle as a character than it was for JS with Majida. Pickle's arrival coincided with the "on safari" trend, and since as a character he knew about those areas (where Treguard knew less) he had something unique to add. JS as Majida didn't really have such an advantage and so she often sounded like an echo and had to spend a lot of time restating things.
I also preferred Majida's responses when teams lost. Pickle whinged a bit and occasionally got upset. I much preferred Majida's anger-driven response. You feel if you got attacked in a dark alley late at night she'd be more than useful with her fists, whereas Pickle would probably hand over his wallet and whimper "Please, don't hurt me, Master, I'll do anything".
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I think that the assistants changed Knightmare for the worse. Let's face it, it was not a comedy show; the focus was on survival and exciting adventure. Treguard by himself delivered the ideal suspense and created a great atmosphere for a gameshow set in a dungeon where survival was key.
I found banter between Treguard and both assistants tiresome and it gave dungeoneers less time to do their adventure. Treguard's approach in the later series seemed to be a sort of 'You can't get the staff these days' and it never changed. Watch the first episode from Series 7 to see what I mean. The first dungeoneer spent ages standing around doing nothing while Treguard told Majida to shut up. I was thinking the same!! In any of the first 3 series, the focus of attention was on the quest in hand which was the object of the program surely.
The concept of having a wise commander and braindead comrades was mirrored in Lord Fear's quarters as well. The spyglass concept also took away game time from the dungeoneers.
I must agree though that there were some benefits from appointing assistants (although sadly most were for the production team). It did change the concept and prevent it from becoming stale. However, surely it would have lasted another series or two before people would have got bored?
Pickle in a way did not do much to adversely affect the program because the character was able to give the dungeoneers advice about their quest; something Treguard did frequently before. Majida I'm sorry to say was less than useless because her character had no knowledge at all of the quests and asked too many questions!
I would have preferred Treguard to stay in sole command or at least have an advisor with some level of confidence and allowed to give inside knowledge.
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I'm of the opposite view. Pickle really annoyed the hell out of me and my friend and we made up quite nasty nicknames for him and Treguard (I won't be repeating them, I'm a lot older and wiser now) but I myself had no problem with Majida, I quite liked her actually and thought she was a lot better than Pickle was.
I concur, though I didn't really hate Pickle, I just preferred Majida. One of my friends absolutely despised him though. I always thought Majida had more character, and more of a backbone.
And I agree that Majida was a lot more agressive, I always wanted to see her smacking particularly dense advisers with the staff...
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