Series 4 - Episode 16
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Dear Morghanna,
Thank you for your insightful and sympathetic reflections (it was Andrew who said, "write that down", in fact - and probably not for the first time!).
"It has been stated that team 8 failed the block&tackle, but were allowed to continue. However, there was
little logic in the producers doing this, only to cut-off the quest as incomplete in the next room anyway."
The Floor Manager told Giles to take four large steps into the Block and Tackle room; for the first take, he ran in, so he was pretty close to the left-hand exit to begin with. After the floor had given way beneath him, I said, "Er, Giles, could you take a large side step to your right, please?" - there was still some floor on that side of him, you see.
So if there were, indeed, little logic in the production team allowing us to continue, only to cut-off the quest as incomplete in the next room anyway (fir tree and wreath delivery notwithstanding!), perhaps the real reason for the second take was a consensus among the production team that the enthusiastic manner of Giles' entry had made the challenge unfair - so we didn't fail it - as hard as it may be to disentangle that motivation from the series ending.
In any event, they allowed us to complete the Transporter Pad room (which we did successfully) and apparently there were four more scenes to go: I venture to suggest that includes the Transporter Pad room itself, plus the final encounter with Mogdred, the Level three weeping door and then the location of our quest object, the Cup that Heals.
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So if there were, indeed, little logic in the production team allowing us to continue, only to cut-off the quest as incomplete in the next room anyway (fir tree and wreath delivery notwithstanding!)
Brett - not sure if you saw this post recently, but it's worth having a look at the Twitch video mentioned within as it looks at your quest referencing what you've mentioned above.
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Thank-you for your input Brett, it is very much appreciated. It's amazing to actually hear from someone who experienced Knightmare in person. It shows how much armchair fans (like myself) miss. That's good that the producers wanted to make the challenge as fair as possible.
From your deduction of what obstacles remained, you were very close to completion.
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It seems an obvious observation, but doesn't appear to have been made before: this episode marked the halfway point in Knightmare's TV run as both the end of Series 4 of 8 and as Episode 56 of 112. In terms of minutes, perhaps the halfway point falls elsewhere as not all episodes were precisely the same duration.
The festive ending to the series might have been really nice, but in these circumstances it fell completely flat.
There've been some entertaining forum comments about the Christmas ending over the years, including:
As I've said so many times, I think the end to Series 4 is sickening, with my main focus for scorn being that dreadful Christmas scene, which I just can't watch.
Let me just start by saying this ep had the best ending of any series. No contest. Oh. Sorry. Wait a second...Lie Mode cancel...ahem ... the less said about the chrimbo ending, the better.
We even jointly wrote a fanfic via this forum about Merlin stealing Christmas.
But here's what dungeoneer Giles himself had to say about the Christmas ending when he posted on the forum 15 years ago:
We hated that, it was really childish and made us feel really uncomfortable. It was filmed in mid august too.
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The block and tackle room initially looked to be a blatant attempt to kill them to finish the series at a cnvenient time. He entered at an awkward angle, they did a zig-zag tour of the right hand side of the room before finding the exit (turn 45 degrees right is what you want), they were very lucky not to be whacked by a sliding block. I don't think they got let off in the COB, it looked to me like a miss by a hairs breadth. Shame they ran out of time, from my memory of Dickon's quest they were only about three rooms from victory after the transporter pads.
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Reflecting on it now with your help and that of others on the forum, the "you do want to be home for Christmas, don't you boys?" does seem a bit redolent of a public school of a bygone era. Maybe we should have said "Surely, Santa Claus - sorry, Merlin, we're not going to miss Christmas if we stay here another fifteen minutes or so to complete our quest, are we?!".
Also selective cutting of less action-packed moments might have enabled us to complete the quest on screen time - just like when the production team cut four minutes or so from our time on the Spindizzy room in episode 14.
The 30th anniversary of your quest, and its infamous ending, has come and gone. The world seems to have learned (very much the hard way) that a well-advanced quest for a healing-related goal should not be chucked away for the sake of a Christmas gathering.
I'll take this opportunity to thank everyone who has brought good things to the Knightmare fandom in 2020 and to wish you all well for 2021.
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I, likewise, noticed it was 30 years this, 'Christmas', Drassil... and I was thinking about remarking on the KM reference I noticed in the lyrics to, 'Deck the Halls', a few days ago. As often happens with this time of the year, though, that would have jarred with the more earnest reflections you recorded yesterday afternoon.
For those who, like Brother Mace, isolating himself in our quest, "...contemplate the follies of the wide world," Treguard's injunction when we encountered the tree-troll seems particularly apt: "Do as you're told, for now."
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You see the same trainers when Alastair's on the pad as well. Looks like Dickon's feet were the only ones they bothered doing a close-up on!
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I'm going to do something I thought I'd never do. I'm going to say something complimentary about the Christmas scene.
I like the way John Woodnutt provides his own sound effect when he magics up the decorations. (I recall a story about Ewan McGregor doing the same thing with his light sabre when filming The Phantom Menace.) It's probably better that he wasn't asked to spellcast or recite an incantation, given how much else was going on in that scene.
There. It wasn't easy but I did it. I need a rest now.
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Ok, to continue this trend of leniency towards this controversial scene: I think it was the circumstances rather than the scene itself that felt wrong.
Given that Knightmare was originally an autumn broadcast and most series ended immediately before the festive period, this closing xmas scene might have been ok in a different series, for example when S7 T7 received their trophies.
It was really unfortunate that they chose to use it in an episode where a team had just been cruelly cut-off on the brink of victory. After that, the "never mind lads, at least it's nearly xmas...." seemed like a real slap in the face.
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One thing I like in the closing moments of the scene is the inimitable Hugo Myatt saying my first name in the team's farewell. Given it's a rare one it has the almost feeling of being addressed directly by the great man himself.
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