Series 2 - Episode 9
-
Mad monk put them out of our misery. lol
More spell casting disaster, they weren't gonna let them get away with it this time.. and some of there riddle answers 'The Goblin King' (good job they didn't say David Bowie) and female Dwarf have beards? WTF?
Oh, Dungoneer wasn't sure which was he right and left arm. lol
New team seem quite young and getting on ok, but I noticed once member keeps wanting to take the left hand door.. lol
However I think they're the first team to describe a room as 'the clue room'
-
Neil's team finally got what they deserved! Thought it was a good death and it was Cedric's only one. The team only got one riddle right with the dwarf and yet again they got rewarded! Even then they couldn't remember to use the password!
Again the chess room took up a lot of time. The team did the right thing though by making Stuart go back as if they directed him forward to a square the bishop would have got him.
-
Very, very odd quest. They really did just keep being let off at every turn - the Bumptious room seemed to have absolutely no point to it other than being a comedy bit of Thatcher-era satire, given that the riddles clearly had no effect on the team. Had they actually cast the SHOVEL spell correctly, they'd have got to Level 3. Imagine if they'd have gone on to win - it would have been the worst-earned win in the history of the show and fix allegations would have echoed to this day. Even Cedric stood there adlibbing for absolutely ages just to give them all the chance in the world, which some teams never had the luxury of.
Combat Chess must have sounded like a good idea on paper but when it's as long as today it kills the momentum stone dead, particularly when there's an ad-break straight after. If I was a casual fan I'm not sure I'd return afterwards...
-
Combat chess has a good atmosphere, but it's not really much of a puzzle. In chess, it's not possible to get a King in checkmate with only a King and a Bishop, and in Combat Chess, a Bishop has to try and capture a Knight single-handed. You have to be really bad at chess to lose it.
-
A word or two about Team 12 of this series (possible spoilers ahead, obviously). Like Team 7, they got a question wrong in the Hall of Folly; but unlike Team 7, the result was that Merlin denied them aid that would have kept them out of losing status; and unlike Team 7, he'd only asked them one question in the first place: not two, and certainly not three.
Was it always the plan to have both a Merlin scene and a Bumptious scene in this level? It wasn't necessary to have both. It demeaned Merlin to have an encounter where the only reward he was intended to offer was a clue to get out of a 50-50 scenario; it demeaned Bumptious to go from bureaucratic intolerance to apparently asking Neil banal question after banal question until he got one right and then rewarding him handsomely.
If they're not careful, which isn't much of an 'if', the diamond could come back to haunt them later in the quest.
Although diamond wasn't an entirely off-the-cavern-wall answer, Bumptious had mentioned gold a moment earlier when giving the name of his guild.
Bumptious found Neil "guilty of being a human [but not] a totally stupid human." When Bumptious then asked Neil to raise his right hand, he raised his right, then his left, then his right. So we can make up our own minds. I would say that Neil's lack of initiative throughout this quest is disappointing. Maybe he was nervous.
The team was asked a total of 9 questions in their quest. Granted, this is harsh, but none of the questions was all that hard. Their overall score: 4 out of 9. This was one lucky team.
They really did just keep being let off at every turn ... Had they actually cast the SHOVEL spell correctly, they'd have got to Level 3. Imagine if they'd have gone on to win - it would have been the worst-earned win in the history of the show and fix allegations would have echoed to this day.
I'm appalled that despite all the team's mess-ups, it seems they did not at any point enter losing status. Tim Child once said that he hated wasting good quests on bad teams, and here I believe he did just that for two whole levels and very nearly more. The SHOVEL special effect went completely to waste if nothing else.
Treguard should have finished with: "If you can't cast the spell, team, then I shall. Spellcasting: S-H-O-V-E... wait for it, teeeam... O-F-F."
Does anyone remember when Craig's sister, xlorax, posted on the forum about the team's demise?
My brother woz well pissed off hehe Woz his stupid friend ... that thought it woz spade and my dad [who attended the filming] sed they were well annoyed wiv him hehe.
Stuart began to fade in before Treguard had said "Enter, stranger". A shame that his eagerness had to be dampened by the slowness of Combat Chess. I liked seeing a dungeoneer enter the scarab room (fire cavern) at a different point, even if it was only done to make up some time.
-
Was it always the plan to have both a Merlin scene and a Bumptious scene in this level? It wasn't necessary to have both. It demeaned Merlin to have an encounter where the only reward he was intended to offer was a clue to get out of a 50-50 scenario; it demeaned Bumptious to go from bureaucratic intolerance to apparently asking Neil banal question after banal question until he got one right and then rewarding him handsomely.
I did think while watching last night that it was overdoing it a bit, having two sets of three riddles in consecutive rooms. I hadn't even noticed how screwed up the rewards they earned from them were!
-
Team 7 finally ran out of luck and their demise was predictably bizarre.
Having managed to get a spell to deal with the guard in the level 2 well room, they wrote it down wrongly and tried to cast "SPADE" instead of "SHOVEL". After several attempts at this and two wrong password attempts, Cedric finally lost patience and clobbered him. Another memorable demise.
Wonderful send-off by Treguard: "How would you like someone to get your name wrong?"
The team was asked a total of 9 questions in their quest. Granted, this is harsh, but none of the questions was all that hard. Their overall score: 4 out of 9. This was one lucky team.
I'm appalled that despite all the team's mess-ups, it seems they did not at any point enter losing status. Tim Child once said that he hated wasting good quests on bad teams, and here I believe he did just that for two whole levels and very nearly more. The SHOVEL special effect went completely to waste if nothing else.
It is unbelievable that 4/9 was enough to keep them in the game and they only failed due to an unforced error. Otherwise they would have reached level 3. Some of their answers were awful.
(To compare against this, several teams in series 1 perished in level 1 for 2/3. In series 3 teams had to get 2/2 in level 2 or they were doomed.)
Teams on Knightmare sometimes got a slight let-off, but this team seemed to be well thru a full quota of 9 lives by the time they encountered Cedric.
Another thing that struck me about this team was that they were so slow. Quest time of 34 mins and they only reached the end of level 2. In contrast, team 3 were most of the way thru level 3 in a 30 min quest.
Team 8 had a slow start as well. Did ok against Igneous (2/3) albeit with several hints from Treguard.
Finished with a cliff-hanger (literally) as they were facing a particularly bad-tempered Lillith when the bell sounded....
-
Combat chess has a good atmosphere, but it's not really much of a puzzle. In chess, it's not possible to get a King in checkmate with only a King and a Bishop, and in Combat Chess, a Bishop has to try and capture a Knight single-handed. You have to be really bad at chess to lose it.
It is possible to be "checkmated" if the dungeoneer moves to the edge of the board and bishop is three squares away with the dungeoneer between the bishop and the wall. The dungeoneer then cannot make a legal move without moving into the path of the bishop. This kind of happened at the beginning when they made a poor first move, and the bishop could move to a square three squares in front of them, between them and the door. This completely blocked forward progress, so the dungeoneer had to retreat back, and is why it took so long for them to get through it.
-
Good Episode, but this new team seem to take ages on the Combat Chess, and they were very sneaky on the Scorpian Scene by keeping to the far right which made me laugh, Now I know why they decided to create a hole to the right of the Scorpian in Series 3 which forced teams to run through and time it right.
I'm guessing none of them play chess much if at all. They took ages because they made a poor move, putting the dungeoneer on a square where the bishop could move three squares in front, which blocks the dungeoneer from making any forward progress, forcing them back to their previous square. They got it right on their next move. Chess is about planning ahead and working out how the opponent might respond to your move, and looking for threats they can make.
-
Treguard: "Well we always knew Cedric would clobber someone sometime."
Or to put it another way: "Yes, we not only kept a homicidal maniac around and allowed him to carry a deadly weapon, we gave him a role where it was his duty to commit murder." I wonder if Treguard knows how lucky he was not to have an HR department.
One interesting way - OK, one possible way - to compare different eras of Knightmare is to swap series and quest numbers around. In other words: to compare aspects of this quest, S2 Q7, with aspects of S7 Q2.
Treguard's final speech to S2 T7 was one of his most sardonic. (Though it would have been hard for him to commiserate with a team who'd been given the most generous, idiot-proof Knightmare adventure in history and still messed it up.) S7 T2, on the other hand, got Uncle Treguard: dithering ("W-what we need is the Nightsight, where's the Night- ... aw, they haven't got the Nightsight"), doting and perhaps the most compassionate "Ooh nasty" in all of Knightmare. (Though had he wanted to be sardonic, Lord Fear's gloating voiceover would have somewhat stolen his thunder.) I much prefer S2 Treguard.
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login