MYTH: Dawn Airey is primarily responsible for the end of Knightmare.

On the 30th anniversary of the final episode, it seems fitting to touch upon this briefly.

I was among those who strongly believed this, as did several Knightmare-based housemates.

That was partly because she is the first name introduced in Tim Child's History of Knightmare, Part 3 (as it is now); partly because she was an instrument of change (a 'reformer', in today's terms); and partly because her career trajectory has always seemed quite ruthless.

That was to last until the Knightmare Convention in 2014. I haven't spoken about this much before, but I did speak with Tim about Dawn Airey during the set-up on Friday afternoon. I cannot remember all of it verbatim, except for his delight in repeating that trio of 'f' words that she became (in)famous for around Channel 5.

But it did strike me quite profoundly just how much of a fan of hers he was – far too much so for somebody that had supposedly deposed the jewel in Broadsword's crown. The data-led approach, of course, was hers. She was in her early 30s (which seems crazy for the role she had) and trying to make strides in a technologically shifting era.

From what I remember, Tim believed Dawn Airey would have kept Knightmare as long as the data proved an appetite for it (which Series 8 absolutely did, versus Virtually Impossible). If anything, she had generated a clearer argument for keeping it, because a crystal clear A/B experiment in that timeslot hadn't worked out. The data in 1994 had bucked the trend.

The reality was more down to the powerplay that took place following Dawn's departure, and other complications. Tim is careful not to apportion blame, and the circumstances are generously explained in the 'history'.

There is, of course, a counter-argument that somebody who experimented with reducing/replacing Knightmare and then left before acting upon any conclusions of that experiment has some culpability for what follows. Fair enough.

But you might find yourself absorbing Tim's testimony slightly differently if you remove Dawn Airey in your mind as the primary villain of the piece. I did.

I can do the ready meal and the cufflinks. Possibly the watch, if I can find one.

I'll bring any other odds and ends that might be useful as fillers.

I see Bex has put down for the sword, but I'll be bringing Trebake's sword from S1, if that works any better.

Don't need to worry about me. I've got what passes for a home to go to. It's a bit of a commute to Islington and back, but not such that I can justify the cost of staying out.

It's an AYE from me!

There's not much in my diary that would get in the way. September would be good! I'd probably recommend early autumn over August on account of the heat making it more difficult to sleep and concentrate for full days.

Myself and Claire aim to meet early afternoon at Blackpool North station - anyone else on a train coming via train with an arrival time that's similar for us to stay around for?

Aye. Due into North at 13:20. Though very much hoping that tonight's chaos at Euston is sorted by the morn.

The last time I travelled up to Blackpool, the train I was on ended up stopping half way up and going backwards. There's always some skullduggery!

I'm in, done, dusted, sorted.

Who's up for our triennial game of 'spot the turd' off Blackpool Pier?

Looks good for me too. Been three years - think I'm just about ready for my next dose.

Mid-August is a bit sketchy, as I'm not allowed leave over the A-level results / Clearing fortnight. Other than that, think I'm ok for most of the summer.

Let's fly.

Next month, the University of Greenwich is opening a new student hub called Dreadnought. I wonder if anyone without an ID card has to sacrifice a limb to get in...

Hi Brett,

Many thanks for the positive feedback!

It's been a long-term ambition to generate individual team pages – partly to make them sharable on an individual basis, and partly to create a little more descriptive space. People will find a way to watch quests if they want to relive every detail, so these are intended as a scannable, swift-paced guide through the gameplay with some extras where we have them.

Yours provided a rare (and fun) opportunity to include some moments of insider-knowledge. As I'm sure you're aware, you are very much a rarity in terms of past contestants who engage with us closely on the site. (Thank you for all your efforts!)

Publishing these pages has also unearthed new things that I wasn't aware of. I didn't know that the 'Sword of Damocles' was included in your quest and not shown! I suppose if programme time was short, it would have been a real challenge to compress the footage enough. One of the Series 2 contestants has mentioned something similar about the lengthy 'Combat Chess' challenge. Likewise, you cannot just cut chunks out of that.

Interesting, too, that you were prompted by staff to consider Merlin's identity. It's always fun for us to add snippets of anything 'unusual' in terms of continuity or process. Unusually, that denotes initiative on a team's part, and that's probably the most interesting thing in terms of good gaming.

It's clear that you enjoyed the Motley scene. The patrons of the inn must get increasingly fed up with the puns over the series and finally snap. Imagine if Giles had needed to scavenge one of the cabbages from the floor for Life Force! I also find the goblin chase to be of the most gripping parts of the series. It's surely fair to say that yours was the most memorable quest of S4 – for the right reasons, at least.

One remaining question I have (for which I apologise if the answer has been covered previously): we heard about an alternative series ending, in case distribution rights were sold to countries that may not wish to air at Xmas. What did that involve – do you remember? Anything remotely exciting?

All the best!

Keith

Yep, happy to be involved!

Just a note to say that all the Series 3 teams now have their own pages.

Here's a directory: https://www.knightmare.com/series/series-3/251-series-3-teams

This reinforced to me what a rich, vibrant and authentic series it was - justifiably a favourite in many fans' eyes.

What did I learn from this? On paper, Series 3 doesn't have quite the variety of death sequences I always thought it did. Many are falls of some description (Teams 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and arguably 1), which is partly caused by the nature of the new puzzles. More, though, I think it demonstrates a perfected art of keeping repetition interesting during S3 in a way that made it a big lift on S2, and certainly made S4 seem laborious as a result.

For anyone that hasn't seen them, individual team pages are also available for Series 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8. Just 1990 and 91 to go.

Thanks to Mystara's expert intervention, the above issue is resolved.

Teams from Series 6 are now up and running.

https://www.knightmare.com/series/series-6/277-series-6-teams

Next up will be Series 2, to give continuity a break.

I'm sure it's her too. Excellent spot, David!

Another blade? It's a boomerang she needs. If it came back every time, it wouldn't go missing as often!

At worst, you'd have to pluck it out of the back of Hands' head. (Naaaasty, etc)

Hi all,

It was reported this week that the 'Level 2' / 'Level 3' / 'Hear from the team' short-cuts on the new team pages are not working.

This looks to be a broader problem that is also affecting the Series 1 team pages (which were previously fine) and could affect anything that is currently divided using page-breaks.

Hopefully, it's just a temporary issue and a fix will be found soon. I do intend to keep building them in this way unless we discover differently.

In the meantime, however, please use the 'All pages' shortcut to view the full page content.

Thanks for your interest, and please do keep reporting any issues.

I'm just rather sad it all seems to be a little too quiet!

Hi there. Better to feel something than nothing at all!

As Alan says, there are things in the pipeline. It's just tricky because we've got busier lives than before and it takes a lot of co-ordination to put the pieces together.

As you've seen, we've got some behind-the-scenes material to share. (I can't believe how long my hair is there. Next stop is a Pat Sharp!)

From my point-of-view, I've been working on a revamp to the Series section, so that every team gets its own page (like Series 1), and a fuller summary.

I'm really excited about this because we haven't yet had a nice unit or page for each team, where we can combine memories, quotes, and other bits and pieces for each quest.

I started this four months ago thinking that would be ample time. More fool me. It hasn't been long enough! But we're starting with Series 8 this weekend and it should all get completed over the autumn.

Keep the faith. We ain't lost yet!

Hi Stephen,

Apologies for the oversight - it was certainly unintentional. How could we possibly lose out on Treguard offering to make hot chocolate?

If you re-visit 'The Unwelcome', it should now all be united. (Or will be very shortly.)

Cheers! K

Neither did the dragon. He wasn't 65.

Rofl, etc.

My idea centres around the Bring Back Knightmare campaign, which has shown signs of success and has certainly driven enough momentum for the seeds to keep blowing.

The advantage of this is that it has enough scope to draw upon many different projects of interest, for both Knightmare fans specifically and for broader fans of fantasy and TV. It also means we can use a number of core community contributors but without getting too bogged down into personalities.

We could go back to the origins (Atik Atac, etc) and plot a timeline of how the show fitted into a technological shift that has moved away from TV.

The interesting part comes afterwards. Knightmare ends - to much confusion and anguish. Its fan base grows. Inspired by a sense of injustice, they come together to launch a number of Bring Back Knightmare campaigns and commemorative projects, including an RPG. By the turn of the century, TC’s VR project gathers momentum and funding. KMVR is piloted, along with TimeGate (I still believe a large number of fans are unaware of these two projects, and would benefit from understanding them as part of a documentary rather than in isolation, where they tend to get poorer response.)

The RPG efforts become more ambitious, but ultimately fade into the distance, as does the memory of KMVR. We launch Knightmare.com anew, in hope rather than expectation.

But it seemed that all hope was gone.

AND THEN:

• Geek Week.

Knightmare Live.

Knightmare Convention.

We’ve even got a clip of David Rowe saying ‘watch this space’!)

There’s all sorts of stuff we can go into for the latest revival. We can also mention the Crystal Maze Experience as another successful TV revival and Bewilder Box as an example of fantasy interactive gaming.

I don’t think there are too many downsides to this chronological structure. It gives us the opportunity to avoid making it too Knightmare-specific or too single-person orientated. I think it has the sort of ambition to blast the 25th anniversary out of the water, and it’s thoughtful enough that we could probably get some old faces willing to say something that’s not just answering the question ‘what was it like?’ or ‘when’s it coming back?’.

Is there something here that will work?

I made that choice of not doing it out of love for your guys and out of love for the show.

There aren't many morals left in a digital age. But if there were any, the moral of this particular story would be that what you don't talk about can't harm anyone.

What others choose to make publicly available or not is their business, and the consequences (if any) are mostly likely to fall on their shoulders.

No more drama? The more this pot gets stirred, the more trouble it tends to wreak. (That's my Folly-esque clue for the day.)