End of seasons
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ooh ooh OHH! i know about this, i know how it was all done.
I e-mailed Tim Child about it a few weeks back cus i've been wondering about this since i watched knightmare as a kid and he told me how it all worked(hes such a helpful guy)
Here's his response:
"Stephen I will answer this one but I can't find time to answer all the queries which come from Knightfans.
All teams which entered the games began with winning team status. If they failed at key points in their quest, they became losing teams. A losing team was not allowed to win - i.e. perform and succeed in the final core task, but a losing team was not necessarily killed off straight away. Some survived longer for entertainment value, and some because their lack of a particular object or spell would not be apparent until they reached the moment of when they needed to use it.
Winding up a series presented special problems. We could not roll a quest across from series to series because the nature of the dungeon and its cast was always revised. When approaching the end of a series with a 'losing' team in Quest, it was relatively easy. You just prolonged their adventure until it became convenient to kill them off. The problem came when the final team was still in 'winning status'. We resolved this in a variety of ways - sometimes providing short cuts; sometimes allowing them to succeed in a sub-task, rather than defeat the dungeon. None of these was really satisfying - but often it was the best I could do, in the cause of maintaining fair play.
There was only one incident when I curtailed a team for any other reason - and that was when one dungeoneer became so homesick he was physically ill. I can't reveal which one or which series, and I don't think you would be able to spot it.If this incident seems odd - remember that we never knew when a Quest was going to end, so there was always another team waiting in back up. This meant that some of the players had been away from home and staying in hotels for up to seven days. Some were only 11, and many had never been away from home before.
best
TC"
Hope this helps
Steve
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That's interesting - although of all the seasons that I can think of, only season one (and possibly season five, I can't remember but I don't think so) actually ended with someone losing.
As an aside, Tim didn't mention whether the team involved in the "incident" he discussed actually finished a season, I assume it could have been any losing/short-cutting team in the show's entire run.
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Fascinating stuff! The "assumed winning until they cock it up" principal is very interesting (and quite sensible in my opinion).
I can certainly understand the home-sickness. I remember what it was like going to university for the first time - that was the first time I'd stayed away from my family. I was 19 and it still cut a bit.
Anyway, Tim's perfectly right not to say which team got curtailed and I don't think we should start guessing.
Btw, I would imagine that it would be extremely difficult to pace a live series to finish at the correct time when a more complicated series ending sub-plot is involved. I predict an earlier series-style ending.
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Btw, I would imagine that it would be extremely difficult to pace a live series to finish at the correct time when a more complicated series ending sub-plot is involved. I predict an earlier series-style ending.
I agree. With it being live there'll probably be quite enough for the production team to think about and rip their hair out over without adding more. I also hope it's the case that they stick with an early-series style finale.
I'm glad to see that so many people are being converted to the cause of the old series endings. It must be like water torture: since I've ranted on and on about how good they are for so long on so many occasions, people are eventually forced to agree.
Now I just need similarly to convince people on other issues, and especially other inclusions for the new KM. Hmmm...
Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss. Clifford Norgate as Hordriss.
You get the picture.
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That's interesting - although of all the seasons that I can think of, only season one (and possibly season five, I can't remember but I don't think so) actually ended with someone losing.
The way i interpret it, we saw the ending team get pulled from the dungeon before getting the chance to finish wheras in reality they have already lost at a key point in a previous dungeon
As i see it, it was a great way to work it
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Wasn't it sad that the series ended after series 8. At the end, the players were simply pushed out of the way and they only ever got 8 minutes of air-time. Then it was over forever
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I think end of seasons were fantastic, if the dungeoneer was only midway through the dungeon, such as series 3, for instance, and that bloody good ending with the trombone, and series 5, with the freezing objective. However, for those who were nearly there, they should have shortened the number of rooms down, or provided appropriate short-cuts for retriving objects.
Series 8. however, was too disapointing for an end to a great programme, it should have been more scraier, like for instance, an outside baddie trying to rule the dungeons, and he was so powerful, that Lord Fear and Treaguard had to work together for once to destroy him.
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by delibratly lessening the rooms you can lessen the challenge and therefore almost say it gives them and unfair advantage. i know difficulty cannot be directly linked to length, but the more rooms you have, mean more chances for guiding errors if nothing else
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Hi Noucamp! Don't think I've come across you yet. Have an elf twig hands one over
I was quite intersted to hear about the dungeoneer being sick and having to kill them because of that. I'm assuming it was a young one - what say to the process of elimination? We may be able to work it out!
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Im sure if they knew season 8 was going to be the last they would have had a big finish.
And i don't think being pulled off the quest because its the end of a season was unfair.. it was part of the game the rules and i guess it was luck of the draw.. unless they had some idea as to how much time they had to play with and played a 'fake' team to end things with? Well we know that wasnt the case it the last few seasons but for the 1st part it might have been the case. or they could included a 'short quest' for the last team.
I also felt it was wrong to kill a team off because they did something wrong.. if they where able to get out of it somehow they should have been giving the chance to.
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I think end of seasons were fantastic, if the dungeoneer was only midway through the dungeon, such as series 3, for instance, and that bloody good ending with the trombone, and series 5, with the freezing objective. However, for those who were nearly there, they should have shortened the number of rooms down, or provided appropriate short-cuts for retriving objects.
This is the way that i see it - lets see who agrees
As a child(and i have mentioned this in other posts) I never really knew or cared that Knightmare was a Game show.
As far as i was concerned the dungeoneer was "killed" by whatever or however it was shown in the show(Eg: being eaten by ariadne) Although their failure in a previous part of the dungeon was usually mentioned as the cause it never occured to me that the team was going to lose from the point of this mistake onwards.
With the "Destroy the dungeon"series ends it was the same way i thougn the team were doing well untill the horn blew - "NOOOOO that team might have made it in the end" would have came to mind but t'was all part of the fun.
The sub quests at certain series end (eg:Freezing the dungeon) when completed also led me to believe that the dungeoneer had "won" as his new objective had been completed and the powers that be reigned supreme.
The game show aspect of Knightmare seems to only really appeal to those who are on the show. the rest of us can be content with sitting back and watching how simon's team were performing well untill they told him to "sidestep right" - their mistake may have been made at that point, or it may have been made earlier. apart from cases where object mischoice is made obvious (series3 team7) we will never know.
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