Why couldn't Douglas have just shut up and done what he was told?

Because then we would all have to endure watching a very poor team blunder their way along for even longer.

Only 1/3 answers to Brangwen Shee, so were told their quest but all other knowledge denied. They had to choose from gold, key & gauntlet (all potentially useful items) so odds of only 1-in-3 that they would reject the correct item. Ironically they told him to take gauntlet & key, which was probably correct, before Douglas talked them into taking the gold instead of the gauntlet.

They completely missed the point of stepping onto the ledge to the left (as indicated by Melly) in the serpents-head cavern and deliberately walked straight into the serpents mouth.

Their performance in the next room was unbelievable. Whilst Motley was being conversational, a huge cobra materialised behind him, but they simply ignored it and headed for the exit.

Motley's disgusted reaction when he realised said it all. He would have helped them if they had alerted him. (Altho as they were in losing-status already, that hardly mattered.) Treguard also looked baffled at their reaction.

Incidentally, i loved the medieval concept of Motley going for his yearly bath.

Next up was a short-fuse bomb room, so they needed the gauntlet to stop the fuse. BOOM!

Was it just my imagination, or did Treguard seem to enjoy dismissing this team?

Team 9 were offered the chalice quest.

They started very slowly thru the vale, but then began to find their confidence. Collected the food and avoided the haunted sword very neatly in the cavern. Escaped the bomb room without too much panic.

Two very tough questions form Golgarach. (If they hadn't read Tolkein, they had no chance.) He was still in full flow when time-out arrived....

Oh dear, what can I say? I would say it's one of those blink and you miss it quests but anyway.

Or, some might say, one of those close-your-eyes-and-hope-it'll-be-over-soon quests.

I'm not convinced that it would have been Brangwen who'd have told them how to use the armourer's gauntlet against the fuse: I think it would have been Treguard, if the team hadn't already been firmly in losing status.

I'm fairly certain that today's double bill on Challenge, Episodes 9-10, was the last two-episode stretch in which nothing beyond Level 1 was seen. Testament to how harsh Series 3 could be.

Melisandre! Feeding Rodney and his friends. Love this moment, very sweet and fitting for our Mellie.

Branwen-Shee, got to love her.

No, he makes the remark after he's already picked up the food and put it in his knapsack. There's nothing else left on the floor, so I don't know what he could be talking about. Very odd.

Could of course, be something completely shrouded by bluescreen and hence in the end product not visible to the television viewer's eye....

He could of course been referring to the item of food that the sword was hovering over....

No, he makes the remark after he's already picked up the food and put it in his knapsack. There's nothing else left on the floor, so I don't know what he could be talking about. Very odd.

I'm intrigued as to how dungeoneer Scott seems able to see the floating sword in the waterfall cave: "I think there's something in front of me, what is it?" It's almost as if they were dangling something there for real in the blue room, but I'm not sure why they'd bother.

He could of course been referring to the item of food that the sword was hovering over.... If you haven't already, I thoroughly recommend checking out this forum topic where Scott himself gives some accounts of various things that happened during his experience on Knightmare.

For all we know, Douglas, Richard, Matthew or Derek may drop by one day and do the same; and if they do, listening to them might help us to understand the team's lack of success better.

Oh absolutely. For all we know, they might. Until then, my opinion of their performance as we saw it, will not change (and quite possibly even afterwards).

I'm not a stubborn person. I'll quite happily admit I'm wrong and change my opinion on something if provided with suitable evidence. Haven't read such a post yet...

Turning this from a Discussion Forum into a Name-Calling Forum seems unconstructive to me.

I don't want to start an argument or make enemies over this, but I felt I had to speak out. I'm sorry if I have offended anyone.

Turning to the quest itself:

In the stomach, they suggest holding out the egg??? Yes, because moving the egg in your hand from your side, to a few centimetres out in front of you, is going to have a massive difference isn't it?! It's not like it's a magic lantern or something that comes to life when you hold it up. It's. An. Egg.

That happened two quests earlier, to Ross. However imperfect Douglas and co. are, surely they don't deserve to have other teams' misdeeds attributed to them?

I find it remarkable to think that Douglas' team may have ended up in losing status as many as three times over: once for not taking the armourer's gauntlet, again for not earning a potentially crucial reward from Motley, and a third time for deliberately entering the serpent's mouth (apparently requiring the production team to reuse the intestinal corridor last seen on Level 3 in Quest 4, as if Douglas were 'allowed' to exit that way). This is quite a feat.

Although there's plenty of evidence that Team 8 of Series 3 were a poor team, I'd like to suggest that they were also unlucky. I can't help comparing Team 7 of Series 2, about whom I've written at length in the Lexicon: when they got a wall monster score of 1, they received an essential clue object hint, and later, seemingly got let off by Mildread after bringing her the wrong object. They went on to complete Level 1. Douglas' team, however, came along in the merciless Series 3; and when they scored 1, were not treated with such lifesaving generosity. Thus, misfortune had a small part to play, in my opinion. Even Simon's team in Series 4 could be regarded as victims of bad luck... but more on that in a later post, possibly.

Another point is that even when a team appears to perform badly, there may be reasons. For example, although Team 5 of Series 5 have been harshly assessed by some fans, team captain Andrea has stood up to these criticisms and explained why her team didn't fare that well. For all we know, Douglas, Richard, Matthew or Derek may drop by one day and do the same; and if they do, listening to them might help us to understand the team's lack of success better.

Into the corridor with the closing wall, and almost immediately the wall begins to close in. The team stand about and do god knows what for what feels like 15 minutes, and then decide to direct him out the room, during which time the wall waits patiently for them to leave before moving forward again - waits WAAAAAAY longer than it should have.

Very much like the skull ghosts, then... which had a strange tendency to hover around even the laziest of dungeoneers without ever actually moving in for the kill.

In the stomach, they suggest holding out the egg??? Yes, because moving the egg in your hand from your side, to a few centimetres out in front of you, is going to have a massive difference isn't it?! It's not like it's a magic lantern or something that comes to life when you hold it up. It's. An. Egg.

I'd have had them killed off here.

"Warning, team! You've taken the wrong path. Now you'll have to find your way out of the serpent's stomach before the gruesome process of digestion begins. You'll need something to make it sick...

Remind me what they did here. Was the egg supposed to be rotten? If I'd been in charge it wouldn't be, and then...

Suitably horrific graphics of Douglas being digested, BONG, "Oooh, nasty!"

Treguard: Oooooh what a terrible mess! You were c**p BYE! (Wooosh! Followed by leaving scene) GET OFF MY LAND!!!! (12-Bore Double-Barrelled Shotgun fired from the battlements!)

But glad you agree - what morons

I agree too thick as two short planks these bunch of tone-deaf prats!

They have to be without doubt the worst Knightmare team ever. A tad extreme you may think, but I have tried to come up with some good points to credit them with, and simply can't come up with any!

First: maggot pit with Mellisandre. After Melly says her bit, Duncan begins walking forward (without being told) and almost straight into the maggot pit. Advisors have to tell him to stop. Melly starts speaking and again Duncan begins stepping dangerously close to the edge. Advisors have no option but to speak over what Melly is saying (could have been important) to tell him to stop.

Nothing major, but a bit weird that TWICE Douglas begins walking forward without an advisor telling him to. Um... he has watched KM before... right?

Melly asks "Why have you got that hat on?" to which Duncan indifferently replies "Dunno".

This was when I decided I hate this team. "Dunno"? Well, that's the spirit!! Can tell you really love Knightmare, mate.

Melly then asks "Are you a knowledgable person Douglas" to which he replies "Um.... Dunno." Again.

He's really getting into this RPG thing isn't he? Wow, can tell he's loving it so much.

Upon leaving the room, Treguard warns about the life force level, and Douglas points out an apple on the floor. Despite this, the advisor isn't sure what to do (!!!!!!) and has to get a nod of encouragement from another advisor before saying pick it up!

Into the corridor with the closing wall, and almost immediately the wall begins to close in. The team stand about and do god knows what for what feels like 15 minutes, and then decide to direct him out the room, during which time the wall waits patiently for them to leave before moving forward again - waits WAAAAAAY longer than it should have.

Into the clue room, and well we all know what happened there. 1 question right. As for the clue objects, the team originally pick the correct objects and are all set to go, when Douglas suddenly buts in that he thinks it's the wrong choice. They then leave the gauntlet in favour of the gold. Fools. Why couldn't Douglas have just shut up and done what he was told?

Into the room with the serpent's tongue and the team fanny about for ages trying to get Douglas on the tongue, and then to stand EXACTLY in the middle of it (what the heck are they doing?????).

They notice an image of Melly waving at them from the ledge, but dismiss it: "Oh, she's gone again. Oh well, let's get you into that serpent's mouth!". It doesn't even occur to them that maybe she was standing there for a reason!!!! They just completely and utterly dismiss it! IDIOTS!

In the stomach, they suggest holding out the egg??? Yes, because moving the egg in your hand from your side, to a few centimetres out in front of you, is going to have a massive difference isn't it?! It's not like it's a magic lantern or something that comes to life when you hold it up. It's. An. Egg.

Further complete and utter inability to interact with characters in the pool room. Can't even be bothered telling Motley there's a giant snake behind him.

Even with Treguards persistant nudging, they completely ignore him and just try to get Duncan out of there. Even Hugo Myatt can be seen just at the side of the screen, despairing almost in pain at this team's idiocy, when he holds his hands out as if to say "WHAT THE HECK? ARE THIS LOT BRAIN DEAD?"

This team just seem to want to go from door to door, not really bothering about what's IN the room, or indeed enjoying the game.

Motley runs off without giving them any help (serves them right) but they are SO stupid they don't even seem to realise they've done anything wrong. In fact up until now they have seemed blissfully ignorant about the hap hazard, half hearted way they have stumbled through the dungeon.

Thankfully, and not before time, killed in the bomb room. A most enjoyable death. Just a shame the reason Treaguard gave was about not having the gauntlett. When really he should have said "You died because you were a terribly poor team who didn't seem to have a clue what you were doing and, more importantly, didn't even seem to care!

Yes it's only a TV show, but I've just watched this team for the first time (one of the few teams I hadn't seen) and I can't believe how lame they were. It makes me angry that so many probably perfectly reasonable teams auditioned for Knightmare and never got through, yet this miserable lot somehow slipped through the net.

We heard Melly's full name here, did anyone catch it?

If I recall correctly, it's "Mellisandre Makepeace Perhappenstance".

Yes, Billy had already revealed it in his post on the Thursday - a post that Dan quoted from in his post!

Taking a look at this picture on the website, I find it impossible to tell whether it's Leo or Douglas: they both walked along that intestinal corridor, and both wore seemingly identical red shirts. So I am going to concoct a theory:

Douglas wasn't supposed to walk straight into the serpent's mouth. No Series 3 dungeoneer was. (Ross entered it, but not by choice, and he had the means to escape the monster's stomach). To allow him to continue a bit further (if only far enough for his failure to pick up the gauntlet to catch up with him), footage of Leo in the intestinal corridor was used as if it were Douglas. We know that another S3 dungeoneer, Gavin, got let off after going wrong on the serpent's tongue, making a similar reprieve more likely for Douglas.

Of course, close observation of the episodes might disprove the recycled footage theory in a trice. But it was fun coming up with it.

[Addendum, 24/08/08: Leo's trip down the intestinal corridor can be viewed here from 4:05, and Douglas' here from 1:17. I'm not so sure that they're both Leo now, but the red shirts are rather a coincidence.]

We heard Melly's full name here, did anyone catch it?

If I recall correctly, it's "Mellisandre Makepeace Perhappenstance".

My brother, a big LOtR fan, insists that Golgarach should have set Falsehood for question 1- it was Deegol, not Bilbo, who first recieved the ring.

i am not sure if it was ever properly confirmed in the books that Smeagel and Doogel were actually hobbit, only that they were similar.

Sméagol and Déagol were both Stoors, the southernmost of the three strains of Hobbits, so the answer should indeed have been Deagol, yes. That makes the question much, much harder, of course, but that's Series 3 for you. Shame on the researchers!

(excuse the incorrect time-of-post on the quotations; it was the only way I could find to get the board software to display the name of who I was quoting...)

The Lord of Rings question may not be asked today as everyone will ow know the answer.

But the new team we have seems to be a bit on the slow side here, you could see Treyguard wanting them to hurry through the valley. But their sense of direction seemed a bit off to me, they were lucky i believe not to sink in quicksand when the dingeoneer came off the path

At least he was quick when he had to be with the food and sword.