Re:Series 2 - Episode 13
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I must admit, it was one of the easier level 3s I've seen. It felt harder than another quest's level 1, actually, the one which plunged them into combat chess, then a bomb room, then a wall monster with hard riddles...
This lot didn't have much, especially towards the end:
Mogdred: Very well, you must face the final challenge alone! Muhahahahaha (Etc)"
Next room: A guillotine room with a sprite of energy. No harder than the corridor of spears, or even half of it. The dragon (Owen?) was depressingly easy, too, like the giant of level 1.
Still, even more great Treguard acting today, looking concerned over Folly, and getting intense about the Medusa.
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I REALLY think they didn't deserve to win - they were one of the worst teams I've seen - just didn't seam to be on the ball at all.
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I can think of worst teams like team 6 and team 11 in this quest. The current team (11) have managed to mistake potion for poison.
In fairness though in level 1 they only used one clue object, in level 2 they used no clue objects (if you don't count the destructor bottle), and in level 3 they only used one clue object. So from that aspect they had an easier quest, and I must admit level 3 wasn't the hardest that I've seen.
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I remember getting the sensation that this team was gonna go all the way during the Medusa chamber. I actually got annoyed because I wanted Mark's team to be the only winners as I'd loved them and their quest so much. I think level 3 was a tad easy for them, but still a good entertaining quest.
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I thought this team were fairly clever, but they were rubbish at maneuvering, one of the worst both at directing and being directed. Julian couldn't walk in a straight line, would randomly alternate between take small and huge steps and always turn more than 90 degrees resulting in him going backwards. The advisors often got left and right mixed up and would faff around to get him anywhere, having him go in circles and in one room walk right towards a monster, the cavern wright. That cavern wright should have killed them!
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For those who are familiar with John Betjeman's poetic reference to friendly bombs, this quest surely features one. Slow-burning fuses are one thing, but the light on Anthony's bomb actually dances back down the fuse over a dozen times, giving it all the menace of a novelty candle. This 'Hokey-Cokey Syndrome' obviously gave Ariadne ideas.
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I should probably be old enough to know better by now, but I really love this episode. We get to see so much of the dark, grimy, ethereal architecture of Level Three, much of it rarely seen elsewhere, given how few teams ever got this far. This includes one of only three appearances by the dreaded Medusa, perhaps the most lethal monster in the Dungeon, and the only time it is thwarted without a spell. That strange 'air-raid siren' sound in the background really made the scene extra-scary back in the day, although inevitably it has far less impact two decades on. And the stained glass window room is one of my all time favourite chamber designs; what is causing that sound of footsteps in the background?
None of this is to say I'm overly impressed by Julian's team. Strangely enough, I remember when I first watched this quest in 1988, I somehow could tell as soon as they arrived in the Great Hall that they were going to win. There really is no reason for this, as there was nothing madly clever about them, and in fact, they were also one of the clumsiest teams in season 2; injured in the Cave Of Fire, got an easy riddle wrong, and seemed to get carried along by the sub-plots a bit much; a spell too cheaply-earned from Gretel, Folly more or less sorting out half of Level Two for them, and a lucky break with the Gargoyle got them vital clues that other dungeoneers would never get in Level Three. As early-season Level Three goes, it was a very easy ride.
Also - this is something that's been niggling me right from the day that the episode was first broadcast - I know that Mogdred is 65% bluff, 30% bluster, only 5% real threat and 100% shouting, but he goes on about Julian facing the "Ultimate Challenge unaided!!!!!" And then he wanders off without doing anything further, and the next room is the Way Out. I suppose in a very literal sense we can call the Guillotine Door the Ultimate Challenge, in that it was the last chamber, but it's not much of a challenge, is it? It's just a test of manoeuvre-timing. Anyone who can cross the Mills Of Doom won't have any trouble with it. So why would anyone need any aid with it?
Still, a winner is a winner, and I guess there's no law against being lucky.
Anthony Hague's team are a pretty lame follow-up. Very iffy at manoeuvring, and as we see later, not much better at reading. One oddity; is it just me, or are Folly's sobs in the four-door chamber loop-played a couple of times? Just a suspicion there.
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For those who are familiar with John Betjeman's poetic reference to friendly bombs, this quest surely features one. Slow-burning fuses are one thing, but the light on Anthony's bomb actually dances back down the fuse over a dozen times, giving it all the menace of a novelty candle. This 'Hokey-Cokey Syndrome' obviously gave Ariadne ideas.
ROTFLMAO!
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And the stained glass window room is one of my all time favourite chamber designs; what is causing that sound of footsteps in the background?
I wondered that too. It's weird how nobody even mentions it!
And yes, it does make me laugh how Mogdred's idea of "the ultimate challenge!!" turns out to be a single guillotine blade slowly going up and down. g
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In my opinion, Julian's team are the least impressive winners of Knightmare. It's a disgrace that they go down as more successful than Leo or Martin in the history books!
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Good to see Level 3. Some great artwork in the rooms. I was intrigued how the final section abandons the dungeon setting and is set in the stars. I think that it worked quite well for the climax of the adventure.
Julian's team rarely seemed under any serious threat though. For me, this tinged their victory a little. Nothing against them but I didn't feel that they had the opportunity to overcome as many obstacles as some of the other teams.
Loved the section with Folly in Anthony's game. I like the idea of the team looking for his laughter - it's something a bit different. Poor Folly!
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Julian's team rarely seemed under any serious threat though. For me, this tinged their victory a little. Nothing against them but I didn't feel that they had the opportunity to overcome as many obstacles as some of the other teams.
Yes I felt this was an easy quest and the team were not challenged enough. The threat when Mogdread told the team that they had to face the ultimate challenge unaided came to nothing. What was it meant to be?!
The team's reaction when they won the quest was disappointing. When Treguard spellcasts heroes, you hear someone give out a quiet laugh as if to say 'really?'
For me the least deserving of all the winning team's.
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Very surprised I thought they were going to be killed off, lol this is the winning team I've always forgotten about, I can't believe they won when the previous team were unfairly killed off. I kept expecting something to happen but other than Medusa level 3 was so easy.
Both winning teams in series 2 have been poor and pretty much giving the win, not earned. The team were very poor at guiding, almost walked the poor chap off the stage in that Medusa room. They all looked very board and just plodded along, possibly because the lack of a real challenge. Modgread gave it his best.. made a dragon wake up and tried to scare the team...challenging.
New team have duffed up already
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How many times can someone confuse left with right and not go into losing status, seriously - it appears to only be dumb luck with respect to positioning that separates Simon from Julian IMHO in that regard.
Seemed to be a weird effect on the talisman scene, like it was being projected from film, and not synced properly, never saw it at the time, but I guess better quality pictures expose stuff like that now.
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I appear to have a very strong false memory of last weeks temporal disruption. I was sure the freeze was going to come just after the cavernwight had appeared in the doorway - I remember having a playground conversation about whether the dungeoneer would be able to get past a monster coming from the front of the room rather than chasing from the back as per usual (this seemed a fiendishly difficult challenge at the time). When disruption came before the wight's entrance I just assumed I was thinking of a different quest but then lo and behold it appeared shortly after game on.
Does anyone know if such a freeze occurs in a different quest?
As for the winning quest itself - yes, a bit of a walkthrough. I saw KM Live on Friday and the team died because they didn't use a spell. It just highlighted for me how much this team were spoonfed by Treguard's heavy-handed hints.
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I'm not sure if I take Julian's victory as such an undeserving one, but it's certainly in the bottom three or so for me. Mogdred was added almost as an afterthought, the dragon was no threat at all, and there wasn't a final encounter scene, really.
I seriously like Becca's hat, though.
I'm surprised at how tense the Medusa scene is! It makes for very exciting viewing, having the team doing a few seconds at a time, Julian behind the shield and Treguard's urgent, strained voice. It's actually quite a boring room in some cases (you don't have the shield and you die, really), but they always managed to make it interesting.
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How many times can someone confuse left with right and not go into losing status, seriously - it appears to only be dumb luck with respect to positioning that separates Simon from Julian IMHO in that regard.
As far as I am aware, this whole "losing status" thing is nothing more than an abstract description of a whole bunch of questions and concerns that the production team continually asked.
Unfortunately, with hindsight, we seem to occasionally interpret it as a production rule. In practice, I don't think it's anything more complicated than "Are the current team making good TV right now? If not, force them to make good TV or die".
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How many times can someone confuse left with right and not go into losing status, seriously - it appears to only be dumb luck with respect to positioning that separates Simon from Julian IMHO in that regard.
As far as I am aware, this whole "losing status" thing is nothing more than an abstract description of a whole bunch of questions and concerns that the production team continually asked.
Unfortunately, with hindsight, we seem to occasionally interpret it as a production rule. In practice, I don't think it's anything more complicated than "Are the current team making good TV right now? If not, force them to make good TV or die".
I'm starting to think that I have been very naïve I genuinely thought that the outcome of adventures was mostly based on the skills of the team and that each adventure was more or less mapped out beforehand (subject obviously to the team taking the right objects, answering the riddles correctly etc).
Do we know to what extent the production team made decisions to kill off teams that didn't make good TV?
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