Series 2 - Episode 7
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2 is the score, you may know more.
Your quest is to watch knightmare, yet you may not miss it.
The jar of honey has a strange taste.
Brollachan I was, Brollachan I still am.
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Apart from in series 6, this was the only episode to start afresh with a new team
There are eight others - the first episodes of each series.
As has been said elsewhere, I think Akash was actually a good dungeoneer - his banter with the troll is quite funny, and a lot better interaction than some other dungeoneers managed with the characters (I'm thinking particularly of the ones who always ask their advisers what they should say, even when the question is "what is your name").
I think his advisers were just unlucky, although they really should've got the moon riddle correct.
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Who is the greatest wizard of all?
The wizard of Oz.
Lol
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I think Akash was an ok dungeoneer but the Advisors were very poor. They did not help with the troll problem, the bomb room had them not say anything, somehow Akash turned to face the door and they just told him to run! They did not know any of the riddles. The first one was tough but I'm guessing as they had to refilm the scene they made a hard one for them to use the TRUTH spell on. They then choose the Poison, they then try to guide Akash through the wrong door! I think only one of the advisors actually done any of the guiding and constructive work. One cast the truth spell (and I wouldn't be surprised if she spelt it worng and they had to redo it) and chose the Poison as the second item! Then, when told by Lillith that they needed the icepack just said to try and offer the gem! Really, they were the worst advisors I think Knightmare had ever witnessed! Even with all the extra filming and added in bits they still only lasted 10 minutes!
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Watched this episode again just now and I have to say, beyond the amusement team 6's bungling, the overwhelming feeling I get from it is that it's the weirdest quest of the early years. There's something truly surreal about it, even by Knightmare's standards, and I recall feeling that way back when I first saw it in 1988.
The weird feeling starts straight away with this being the first ever in-season episode to begin with a fresh quest. Then, in a season when we've gotten used to quests commencing with the Wheel Of Fate, this one... doesn't. Then we get a scene that feels very contrived, with the troll giving out perhaps the most cheaply-earned (and conveniently-generic - see below) spell in the history of the series.
Then a bomb room. Nothing terribly odd about that, but then, the cup of oddness runneth over as Treguard asides to the camera, with one of those sinister smiles he had such an enduring supply of in those days, that he has a team who is hunting for trouble. (For some reason, between about 1989 and 1995 I always remembered Treguard sounding slightly irritable and wording it as, "It seems we have a team looking for trouble here..." but in fact he just sounds amused, flippantly wording it as, "This team seems to hunt for trouble!"). The floundering indecision of the advisors becomes all too obvious at this point; they say to the misfortunate Akash that he'd better get out of there quick, but then they freeze up and don't quite get round to offering him any instructions for actually doing so. In fairness, they were about to just when Treguard made his aside to the camera, and that clearly put them off a bit. But even so, they really shouldn't have made such a fifteen-course banquet of saying, "Turn left... now walk forward!"
Clue room time, and, my my, isn't Igneous in a rotten mood? Very impatient for answers. And if that really is what he's looking for, boy, has he chosen the wrong team. It's understandable not knowing the answer to the first riddle (King Canute isn't nearly as famous as some of the post-Norman monarchs), and the second riddle is perhaps a bit ambiguous (I'd say answers like 'car', 'cart' and even 'bicycle' would be reaonable, if anachronistic), but you can't really give them the benefit of the doubt over the third. Most children over the age of six know that the pull of the moon causes the tides (or at least they did back in the 1980's. Not so sure about the modern generation).
I firmly believe the conspiracy theory that has raged on about this quest, even though it has never been publicly confirmed by Tim Child. It's just too much of a lucky break that the only team that ever failed all three riddles in the Level One clue room, just happened beforehand to be the only team to receive the most generically-useful spell in the history of Knightmare - earned with very little effort at all. That coincidental feeling certainly added to the air of weirdness at the time, and has only been slightly lifted by subsequently hearing the rumours of a fix.
Whether the fix happened or not, the spell is just enough to get our intrepid young hero past Igneous - but not before we get to hear, for the first time ever, those dreaded words, "I scorn you!" from the mouth of a Wall Monster. Yes, it's the first time a team has managed a score of only one in the Level One clue room, but certainly not the last.
The team choose the poison from the table! The poison! I mean, why? Off the top of my head, this happens at least three times in Knightmare, and each time it happens I think, why take a bottle of poison when there are other options available, and you have been given no indication at all that the poison will be of any use? It is an immoral enough item to take that you could almost class it as taking an offensive weapon, and just like an offensive weapon, there are going to be very few situations where the blindfolded can use it. The icepack seems such an obvious thing to take, simply because it's so unusual and really stands out. (Weird again, but at least it's obvious.)
Another odd little detail; Akash sidesteps out of the clue room, and when he arrives next in the Great Corridor of The Barely-Animate And Very-Obviously-Hand-Drawn Monsters, he is facing the wall rather than straight ahead. Nice touch, and a rare bit of room-to-room continuity. But even that kind of adds to the weirdness, because at other times when a dungeoneer has side-stepped out of the Clue Rooms, they'd still be facing ahead in the next chamber...
Another breathtaking blunder by our shrewd team of maiden adventurers, as, through apparent sheer lack of thought, they try to guide Akash to the door marked for the Cup. We know now that there was probably a delay of about half an hour between rooms, so it's possible they forgot that Igneous told them that their Quest was for the Sword, but on-screen it appears to have been barely a minute. (And even so, did none of them think to note it down? What have they got the clipboards and pencils for then?) Treguard gives them a very big hint that they're cocking up again, and Akash changes direction. All of this increases the length of this scene in a way that does the credibility of the room no favours; the toaderdile's complete inability to move forward is getting more and more obvious as the scene drags on, and its very slight squirming and jaw-flapping take on an inadvertent (and near-offensive) resemblance to a Parkinson's sufferer. I'm not usually one for fussing about political correctness, but that is not good at all.
Lillith is waiting in the Serpent's Mouth Cavern, and as if you couldn't guess back in the Clue Room, she has a headache. From her slip of the tongue, we can tell that the malady is entirely self-inflicted. This scene foreshadows a frequent topic the series would use for purposes of humour in subsequent seasons - inebriation. The likes of Brother Mace, Julius Scaramonger and Sly Hands would be seen raising-the-wrist on a regular basis, which highlights how daring the series was willing to be (and more to the point, was allowed to get away with being). Would a kids' show these days be allowed to make fun of the (often serious) matter of alcoholism on such a regular basis? I doubt it. Not that I'm objecting.
It says a lot about Lillith and her way of only seeing what she wants to see that she immediately recalls sending for a headache-healer going by the name of Akash. Of course she did no such thing, and hearing her say it adds again to the sense of the surreal - you almost find yourself thinking, "What? Did I miss something?" - but she's so desperate to get over her hangover that she earnestly believes her own words. Worse, when she learns that Akash has nothing to offer as a cure, she then accuses him of being some kind of imposter, even though Akash did not confirm that he was a headache-healer at all. The quest ends with the most predictable fall since a pub manager put up a banner on the outside wall reading, "Watch Tyson v Bruno here live".
As Akash pseudo-tumbles, one of his advisors can be heard wailing, "Oh... my... God...", a blasphemy (like anyone gave a hoot) that again sounds weird on a kids' show, but again is arguably a precursor to later times, and especially Gideon in season 8.
Then onto Neil's team and normality, or at least what passes for normality in the Dungeon, seemed to be restored.
When the episode ended in 1988, I remember winding the video back straight away and watching it again, because my reaction was, "Did all that really happen?" I mentioned to my brother, "Don't you think this is the weirdest episode ever?" He nodded. Admittedly he was only four at the time and so wasn't best suited to answer, but he clearly understood what I meant.
But I'm not complaining. And given the nature of Knightmare and the world it tries to create, I guess words like 'weird' and 'surreal' are among the best compliments you could pay an episode. (And, for me, it's certainly the comparative lack of weirdness and surrealism that brings down some of the later seasons.)
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I seem to recall that there were a few, actually.
I could be wrong, but is it outright banned or is gratuitous use banned? If it's the latter case, they might allow a few, if it seemed warranted.
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Watched this episode today. Worst team ever?
Just from the moment we see the team I thought 'these guys don't look like they know what they are doing'. I got the feeling they had never seen the show before, didn't know each other and were pulled off the street at the last minute. Disaster! Using the spell 'Truth' to answer a question was a WTF moment, they could hardly guide Akesh out of the bomb room other than saying "run". They should have been stopped earlier.
as for the other team....
"The Wizard of Oz"
Face Palm
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Was so good to see Akash and his team again! May not have been the best team but on3 of the most entertaining! Out of interest I think the team were the only one's in Series 2 who didn't go into the wheel of fortune room to pull the lever to decide which room to start off in. I wonder why this was?
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I do think that first riddle was very hard even by KM standards so perhaps the truth spell was simply designed to provide the possibility of a perfect score...but really?
I just remember being an appalled 7 year old as they headed towards the wrong door in the Corridor
Not sure why Treguard went all Frankie Howerd when Akash was in the bomb room!
That version of the snake room makes it look like a genuine threat though - by accident or design it was quite a cool near miss.
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hahhaha loved it, very funny episode.
I wasn't sure if they gave them a Truth spell to make sure they got at least one correct, maybe being all girls the production team thought they might not be as good? (But a wall monster eating a dungenner would be cool, other than the blocker later series)
Bomb rooms should be dealt with quickly and here we have Tregaurd having a rant slowing the team up.. lol The other team struggled in theirs as well, nice touch teasing them with the food.
Didn't really need help with the clue objects really, and Lilith gets her first kill I think.
The new snake is MUCH better, but im not sure why Folly told them to take the sword.
Best answer ever, Bulldozer
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