Forgive me, in my keenness I got a tad over-excited! I stand corrected, like a man in orthopedic shoes!

I casually read through Retro Gamer magazine today while standing in WH Smith, and chanced across a feature on a game named Knightmare - only not one of the ones based on our Knightmare. It's a scrolling shoot-'em-up in a mediaeval setting, and there's some information about it here - it even features a "Nightmare Castle"! While doing a bit of research, I stumbled across another strange connection: Miki Higashino, the composer for the game, also composed the music for another game... called Life Force! COINCIDENCE? YOU DECIDE!* (*Yes, it's a coincidence.)

Wow! I live near Rotherham and had many a trip there when I was a lad. Used to love imagining it was part of Knightmare. Mind you, where I live there are plenty of great locations for that - woods, lakes etc

Referring to the above, the same pun was used in the TV mag that came with The Sun a couple of weeks back. Only today did I finally get the chance to scan it in and upload, and here it is: http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/2465/knightmaresunfo5.jpg

The final issue of The Quest (Summer 1995) announced that 'Hugo Myatt (Treguard) and Cliff Barry (Lissard) will be starring in a panto together at Worthing.' Cliff Barry and David Verrey both appeared in the final series of Red Dwarf, though not in the same episode. Plus there was Knightmare VR, which brought Hugo Myatt and Mark Knight back together.

My favourite is definitely his series 3-6 costume. I don't like his red cloak in series 7 and 8, but it's better in series 7 because he only wears it for about five seconds before hanging it on his chair.

Obviously the concept of a Knightmare "champion of champions" is purely hypothetical, but it's interesting that it assumes the eight winning teams would automatically be eligible, plus a couple of "nearly" teams. But would that actually provide the best selection of teams? After much deliberation i created a list of "Knightmare's top ten teams" and ironically only five of the eight winning teams were on that list. I actually rated several losing teams higher than the winning team from their respective series. Ok, maybe that sounds absurd, but it takes into account the fact that certain losing teams were excellent teams who either made a single mistake in level 3 or were extremely unlucky, whereas several winning teams had fairly unchallenging quests or in one case had several blatant reprieves which effectively guaranteed that they would win. (Admittedly these inconsistencies are down to the producers, not the teams.) Losing (or undefeated) teams that i rate as better than some of the winning teams include: Leo S3 T4 (in my opinion, the finest Knightmare team ever) Martin S3 T11 Giles S4 T8 Sophia S6 T6 Nathan S8 T3 There were a few other losing teams who narrowly missed out as well.

I was low on time when I posted that. I would make it more like Knightmare by making it more like the books actually. Seeing as a team battled Vestan and his army, and a team quested for the Holy Grail. You could do anything really, resque someone, scuffle for an area or anything. I personally can imagine both teams searching for and racing to find a Grail or someother kind of artifact. To male it more Knightmarish, they would obviously face riddles, traps and monsters. In the case of the Oppostition, they would face 'good' puzzles.

The Crystal Maze seems to come and go, though. And it appears they don't have the full set - I've been waiting to see the two Tudor-Pole series for ages now, and when I had the inclination to check Challenge religiously every say it was a constant spiral of series 1-4. They have had the T-P series shown before, though - some time circa 2003, before I had access to Challenge, and I know this because there's a Challenge trailer from around that time clearly showing ET-P charging around the maze, along with scenes from Knightmare as they were doing a double-header. Possibly I picked up the trailer from this site? It's been long enough for me to forget.

While searching Knightmare on google, I eventually came across a magazine called Texas Monthly One of the storys has a story about a rodeo, and one of the Bulls mames is Knightmare

Perhaps you could argue "is a dragon really a dragon if you cannot touch it"/some other weird philosphy. We know Smirky is real as he flew them places. Owen (I don't think) never made physical contact - maybe he was a ghost? Dragons apparently can be very arrogant and he was just trying to convince the dungeeoneers...I'll be quiet now. Was a silly idea. As for the Red One, I have no idea - it was Lord Fear, maybe he sewed a dragon from bit of goblin and old dungeoneers, then dyed it red...brought it to life with a little technosorcery...? Owen can't be a ghost, dungeoneers walked on his nose...

Raven is a fantastic programme and as you may know, I've written a magazine on it called The Raven's Eye at http://www.freewebs.com/ravenseyemag. There are some links with Knightmare with kids being put in a medieval-themed game show with a bearded host and I guess Knightmare and Raven appealed to the same part in me. We haven't had a new series since March 2010 nor any repeats since August 2010 so I've started a petition to bring back Raven to our screens. If any Raven fans out there could sign it I'd be really grateful - the link is http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/bringbackraven/.

They've been showing the ad a lot lately. Ok doing a search I found the ad here: http://www.visit4info.com/details.cfm?adid=28371

Even better than that interview is this blog entry.

Some very interesting insights into what could possibly occur for Knightmare in the future. I think the major problem with the blue screen tech, even though it has advanced since the days of KM, it is still seen as being generally too out dated to spend money on. It is true that we live in a far more advanced society than we did in 1994 (in technical ways if not anything else!), and it would appear even VR fails to impress people these days.

Yes, hello and welcome. I am Dark Descender, Romanticist, Feminist, Pugilist. Enjoy yourself.