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I've found a few mixes of this on my HD. Notably I have the "Princess Sparkle" Remix (in addition to the original mix), but I'm loath to share it without permission from BAF or Princess Sparkle herself. I may post it somewhere if there is sufficient interest.
I also have a janky version of TFTF which I performed live. There are plenty of remixes, but I'm fairly certain I may be the only person to ever attempt a cover! Here is the MP3, although the quality isn't great.
Several episodes of Knightmare are available to view at London's BFI Mediatheque (a free audio-visual repository of old film and TV at the BFI Southbank location).
These are often from the original broadcast on CiTV. These span many years of Knightmare's history; some episodes also include the CiTV wraparound host sections in addition to the episode itself. From my viewing, it seems that episodes available to view include the first ever from Series 1 and one from each subsequent series. There are no successive episodes, however, meaning that some quests are only partially shown. One winner is shown - Julie, from Series 7.
We've all seen Knightmare episodes by now, but I was quite excited to see these presented in their original broadcast form! If you're ever near the Southbank I'd recommend availing yourself of free Knightmare!
Knightmare's entry on the BFI archive search is here. Information about the Mediatheque itself is here. I also wrote a Lexicon article about this!
You get a scroll like those seen on the clue tables. You are excited to see what it says.
Upon unscrolling you find that it is completely blank. This must be a "do-it-yourself" scroll.
While you are thinking about what to write on it, and how to get a writing implement to do so, I insert a coin.
I've seen it said in various places (and I agree) that the general consensus should be that the early series (ie. the Mogdred era) placed a large amount of reliance on riddles to determine whether a team was safe or not.
I can do nought but agree - the quests you've mentioned being placed in losing status as the result of one incorrect answer to a riddle (or a general knowledge question, such as Owen's "beetles" question of Mugg's "Avebury" one) often being in the first few series. You mention the team talking to Melly being let off for not knowing the answer - if I remember correctly, Treguard gave them a hint there too! - which was, as far as I can tell, a team incorrectly answering a question and not being penalised for it.
Wall Monsters - although not actually eating anyone - did occasionally omit information as a result of missed questions, leading to a lack of hints which led the dungeoneer to their death. Merlin did the same once as well, as the team lacked magic to get them through. I do wonder what would happen if a Weeping Door was given an incorrect answer when they needed a correct one. We didn't see much of Doorkis (Doorcas - sp?) or Dooreen, and it was never explicitly said that they required two or three 'truths' to open, whereas Dooris opened with one.
In Dooreen's case, she was encountered once and given three truths, and opened. As a Level 3 obstacle, I doubt she would have opened with one, but then how would the team have died in that situation? Just let their life force slip away like it did in Series 1 and 2?
Starting in Series 4 (and lasting to the end of its run), there was an increase in rooms designed to kill dungeoneers, ie. floor puzzles. Throughout Knightmare's run, the Block and Tackle, the Corridor of Blades, Causeways, the Trial by Spikes, Play Your Cards Right, the Raining Fireballs and Slice Me Dice Me all claimed at least one victim. Lord Fear alluded to a lot of these machinations to be of his own design (which suits his technomagical nature). As opposed to riddles, these were now the things to fear. There was a clear shift here to being fleet of foot (as well as wise and keen) and Knightmare came to being less reliant on riddles.
While Brother Strange did ask for proverbs and wouldn't take one he already knew (and Snapper-Jack never managing to take a fool one series later), the Brollachan was completely ignorant and knew absolutely nothing - so while he did appear on walls and ask questions, he wasn't ever going to actually kill anyone (I doubt there would have been a death animation for that!). Julie and Barry both required a hint from Treguard to guess the answers. But I see a loophole here.
Treguard advised Barry not to lie to the Brollachan. But if he didn't know an answer, giving an incorrect answer wouldn't, technically, be a lie. He gave the Brollachan wrong information (using a very convincing voice) without actually knowing that it was wrong. It can't realistically be classed as a lie.
I never saw the Brollachan as being a threat, despite the fact that he looked menacing. He was probably just a test character to show off the V-Actor headset and they needed something to do with him. He was never realistically going to kill anyone if he didn't know the answers himself.
So, overall, I see your point and there's a lot of fascinating "what-if?" discussion to be had about this. But with the shift towards floor puzzles and only a minority of characters asking questions in later years, that's part of Knightmare's evolution. You're right insofar as it wasn't fair. But Knightmare rarely was.
Having just watched this episode for the first time in a while, it's also the first time I haven't mis-heard Dooris' question about Alexander the Great.
The question refers to a "knotty problem" and is a clear reference to Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot - but for the first 31 years of my life I've been hearing it as a "nutty problem" and was wondering what he had to do with nuts!
I just watched this episode for the first time in a while and
Their confidence had been dented and now they faced Doorkis, whose first question was, "Is aardvark the first word in most dictionaries?" Bizarrely, advisor Emma thought Doorkis said bird, not word. They then argued for ages about whether the question was bird/word and whether an aardvark is a bird. Treguard actually told them several times that the question was "word" and yet they still had to ask him again. After all that, they got the answer wrong anyway, as they mis-spelt aardvark.
I'm still confused by this scene, although Emma's bird/word confusion is endearingly daft. Corrina/Karina (I'm unsure of the spelling) seemed to be the brightest of the advisors; they should have listened to her a little more!
One thing I'm not satisfied by is the answer indicating that "aardvark" is the first word in most dictionaries - ie. they said false and got a falsehood. In every dictionary I've read, the first word is "A"!
This is really exciting - despite the fact that it's my least favourite series. It's a legal, logo-free, full-quality version of Knightmare and that's what we've been waiting for since the Challenge runs!
Good to see that they also have The Crystal Maze!
For the thirteenth time in a row, I'm taking part in FAWM, a community music project in which the aim is to write 14 songs in 28 days. I'm currently at song number 7, so halfway through. I'm doing short songs this year, so all less than a minute.
My most recent song is about Richard from Series 8! You can give it a listen for free on my FAWM page and see if it gives you a laugh!
For me Knightmare jumped the shark when the lifeforce became a pie with a slice or two taken out of it. The pulsating sequence of, was it serious 1-6?, which ended with a scary skull image at the end of a quest, was then watered down to the skeleton with bits falling off, and then just a photo of a pie.
The original 'face' life force was used from series 1 to 5, with additional use in series 6 as a death animation - the walking armour/skeleton one was used from series 6 to 7. I'm with you insofar as the pie was the worst one; in fact, it seemed superfluous. Food was, by this point, a hangover from the earlier series (and less important, since they were now using the knapsack for clue objects!); I very clearly remember not realising that the pie was a life force indicator and wondering exactly what it was!
Like so many others in this thread, I don't really think Knightmare jumped the shark at any point, but then I need to point out the fact that I watched the series in the wrong order.
I was two when Knightmare started and wouldn't have really started watching it until around series 4 or 5. I was still in primary school when series 8 ended (although I sent in an SAE anyway!) and, although I have fond memories of those times, I had never seen any of the earlier series. I did eventually catch series 1 to 4 on Sci-Fi (although they didn't indicate which series was being shown at the time, but I did see it all), and the closest thing I got to a 'shark-jumping' moment was realising the fact that at the beginning of the programme there was no Lord Fear! I'd just assumed he was always the Big Bad!
Now I'm much older and have seen every episode multiple times, in the correct order, there are clearly some moments where Knightmare changed noticeably, but I wouldn't say it jumped the shark:
(i) Outdoor Scenes
This was a staggering difference and probably the biggest switch in the whole run of all eight series: going outside. I remember Tim saying in a TES interview that "in some ways it was necessary to make those changes", which I kind of understand - there was a need to keep things fresh, and if series 4 had been exactly the same as series 3 it wouldn't be seen as innovative any more! Although I'm not fond of the purple tint, I don't mind the existence of outdoor scenes, but it wouldn't be until series 5 that I think they used them to their full potential.
(ii) Extra Equipment
This has always been a bone of contention, but I don't really mind the Eye Shield as an object. My biggest problem with series 1 to 3 was how slowly it moved - navigation out of a room once the team had dealt with whatever the room presented was repetitive and tedious - and the Eye Shield helped to move the quest along at a quicker pace. The passive paths may have been too long, but I understand the need to hurry the teams up a bit.
I also don't have any problems with the Reach wand aside from the fact that it was obviously a mouse pointer! With modern technology, that could have been done much better.
(iii) Dragon Flights
I haven't got a problem with this, either - how many people can genuinely say they've ridden on the back of a dragon?
(iv) CGI
Knightmare was innovative in a way that few other programmes ever were, and one of the ways it remained so was that it moved with the times. In some ways, Knightmare's CGI transition seemed seamless - a little in S4, more in S5, more in S6 and quite a lot in S7 - and the biggest jump happened in series 8, where everything was CGI and back in the dungeon (for the most part!).
But I think that, in many ways, although that was a noticeable shirt, it wasn't jarring - it was just the way things were going. A growing boy with my SNES on hand, I was noticing the improvements in graphical rendering (Donkey Kong Country came out in 1994 and looked fantastic), and Knightmare doing the same just seemed natural!
What might be an interesting thing to do is to watch the series in REVERSE order (8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1) and see if you are noticing the changes more or less obviously - or even if there is a shark jumping moment that way around!
Dredging up this thread because I've recently had another unknown show come to my memory. I'm not sure whether this was on CITV or CBBC, but it was definitely on at least one of those programming blocks.
Anyway, this one was mostly based around talking animals (mainly rodents) - I seem to remember them being real trained animals with voiceovers, but they may have been realistic puppets; it has been a while! - living in some sort of settlement.
Two details I remember are clear:
(i) there was a large alarm clock on the set which had the seasons set out in French (ie. printemps, été, etc.) rather than the numbers 1 - 12, making me assume that the original show was French (which it probably wasn't, actually).
(ii) there was a location in the show which featured quite regularly: an animal prison named Cling Cling (evidently an allusion to Sing Sing, something I think would have been lost on a lot of younger viewers). I don't remember it being in every episode, but it was very often talked about.
I don't remember anything else about it, but maybe those details will jog someone else's memories! Any thoughts?
That's awesome - it's an incredibly catchy song, and I love the range of vocal styles and the instrumentalism behind it all. Basing it on the Hatoful series is appropriately insane!
Yes, it was good to hear Hugo doing a bit as well - at one point, I thought I'd missed out on a Knightmare reference and that one of your singers was a former contestant or something! He's suitably ominous as The Conductor.
Good job.
I know buml0r from Superfrog fan art! He has a DeviantArt page too.
That's a rumour. It's unsubstantiated, and I'm not sure anyone in the production team would remember, seeing as how it was so long ago. Maybe Akash's team know, but as to find them...
Anyway, my guess would be that this is true. My reasons for this are:
(i) Having a dungeoneer death as early as the first wall monster encounter wasn't ever intended to happen. (I'm fairly certain that a death animation could have been done, probably the wall monster saying something like, "FALSEHOOD! Now I feed on YOU!" and the life force suddenly appearing on screen in the depths of condition red). But this wouldn't have made for good television...
(ii) ...or even make the time and expense involved in starting an incredibly short quest worthwhile. The team had clearly passed the interview process, although quite how may be a mystery; they had earned their chance to be on Knightmare. Dying after five minutes is a very short time and doesn't make for any sort of excitement! It's hardly a quest at all!
(iii) Given the above two, it wasn't kosher for the production team to present the Watchers with a short, boring, lame-duck quest.
(iv) Lillith has already proven herself useful as a way of disposing dungeoneers who weren't going to finish level 1 (in most cases, by not taking the right item from the clue room), and Akash certainly hadn't taken it. Not getting any information from the wall monster didn't indicate that he should take the ice pack (although I would have - always take the unusual item!), and not doing so put the team in losing status.
(v) Adding a couple of rooms after the clue room itself made this feel like a more complete quest, and if the team were going to die anyway, let the Watchers think that, despite their bad start, they may have a chance.
(vi) Taking all the above into account, let's imagine that the team did, in fact, score zero during the wall monster encounter. This was so early on in the quest that it would have been easier, perhaps, to re-start the thing and insert the troll encounter in order to guarantee the team at least one truth. The troll encounter seems completely incongruous to me - particularly being so early on, as well; I'd expect encounters of this sort to take place later in Level 1 or Level 2 and certainly later than the Level 1 clue room - lending credence to the fact that this was inserted in at relatively short notice.
So I say that, given the evidence available, this rumour may indeed be true!
If it is true, then the selection of the troll may be called into question. Surely this early in Level 1, someone like Folly or Gretel might be more suited to giving out the spell. Their appearance this early in the Level probably wouldn't be as surprising, either. Heck, put the kitchen room in and have Mildread give them the spell after an admonishment from Treguard! Maybe it was easier to load the chasm room, or Guy Standeven was available and in costume ready to go... whatever the scenario, I think that it all lends credence to the rumour!
My favourite series have changed radically over time, but in best-to-worst order, as they currently stand:
Series 7 - a nice range of characters, some wonderful floor puzzles, very atmospheric setting, and some entertaining teams. The last two winning quests made for fantastic and gripping viewing. Hands is at his best this series, as well.
Series 6 - one of the scariest series in my opinion, with the opening sequence implying that nowhere is safe. Also a good range of characters and some deadly traps (but not as much as in Series 7). Dreadnort was terrifying the first time you saw him, and I like Adrian Neil too - who only lasted one series. And Ah Wok - although questionable - always makes me laugh.
Series 8 - a bone of contention for many, but some really good ideas here which were completely wasted on a very short series, It looks gorgeous, with the updated visuals, and it had most levels back in the dungeon, which was a nice touch. Linghorm and Marblehead were also imposing... and every death in the series was different, so there was plenty of variety here! Should've been a longer series, really.
Series 3 - a fan favourite, which stands out purely because it is so different from every other series that came before and after it. I've seen people say that this should have been replicated for later series, but I don't agree - it stands alone as a unique piece of Knightmare history. Stylistically, it works. And I like the doorway transition animation!
Series 5 - my least favourite of the Lord Fear era, although it's genuinely not as bad as I thought, on a rewatch. It's a period of transition, and it shows; Series 6 is a refined version of what was started here. And there are some great moments - particularly Ben's winning guest - a deserved and exciting win.
Series 2 - which I actually find pretty dull, as there are lots of dungeoneers who are struggling to find their feet leading to interminable room exit sequences. My 77-year-old boss, who watched Knightmare to get an idea of what I was talking about, found it tiresome too - and she was watching a winning quest. If it had moved less slowly, it would have been much more of a joy to watch. Nice ideas, though.
Series 4 - incredibly repetitive to the point that after the fourth quest of Treguard and Pickle saying the same thing over and over again I have the open and willing urge to gnaw my own face off. It has some good moments, though - Helen's opening quest ending in Mogdred's only kill and Giles' series ender with the frantic Block and Tackle that made Treguard laugh! I'm not fond of the Eye Shield much either, but I do appreciated how it moved the quests along, eliminating all the waiting periods in Series 1 to 3.
Series 1 - Necessary, groundbreaking, and iconic. But really, really boring.
The Grimwold family book of vegetarian recipes.
I think TQ confirmed that Young Grimwold is a vegetarian, so that one might actually work!
I believe it was unfair that the team should have known to dispell the DANCE spell on McGrew.
Instead of dancing around the room yelling unintelligible babble, why wasn't he grabbing hold of the dungeoneer, clealry begging for the spell to be lifted in exchange for help?
This is something that I agree with. It wasn't overly clear what they needed to do and McGrew was a relatively unknown quality at this point. At the very least he seemed aggressive, and that would have made him seem like more of a threat. If it had been me, I would've wanted to get away from him too.
I'm also of the opinion that the bagpipe music wasn't helping, as it made him much more indistinct! I could barely hear his pleas throughout the scene (also given the team's instructions) as it was far too loud!
That's well-written and very reminiscent of the gamebooks, specifically the first one. Nice find!
I died three times before managing to finish it.
Though if it was an error, it was hardly the size of Jupiter's Great Red Spot.
Interestingly, since I made the faux pas of confusing the size of Jupiter's Great Red Spot with that of the planet itself, scientists have made note of the width of the Spot decreasing. It's now about 1.3 Earths in diameter, rather than the original estimate of about 3.
Well, I think it's interesting, anyway.
As our leading aficionado of TV comedy, I'm sure you're familiar enough with 1960s Batman not to need telling what the Joker and Batman's relationship is. Even if Superman is based in a different DC Comics city, I can imagine the Joker visiting via public transport.
Joker has his own self-titled comic series in which he did, in fact, visit different cities - a notable example being Joker #4 in which he turned up in Star City, facing off against Green Arrow and Black Canary. In order to make a nebulous Knightmare connection here, arrows were also used by a defender of the Greenwood.
I share your opinion: my childhood memories of snap involve special packs of cards (e.g. a Disney set) rather than the traditional decks, and the match taking all rather than the joker taking all.
That is also interesting, because I always played it with Jokers as a child. But then again, childhood games always vary according to family, friendship groups, school situations and the individual child. The game of "it" (or "tag") is always a good example - I'm still noting variants in school playgrounds that I'd have never thought of when in primary school myself!
Anyway, none of this (except possibly the last point) isn't particularly related to the episode, but still...!
Back to the episode, I can't genuinely think of any other game in which the Joker has the ability to take all. Practically every other card game I can think of has the aim of losing your cards (apart from trick-winning games, like whist, pontoon or pooka... er, poker). Variants aside, I'm still inclined to think of snap as the logical choice.
The team took a very long time and a clue from Treguard to get it - I'm surprised Paul Valentine's muscles didn't seize up!
I've been wondering about that.
Some teams count out loud as the Descender goes past levels, and whether or not they are counting windows, I'm wondering if the production team realise what they are doing and giving them safe passage because they understood what they were meant to do (whether or not windows actually count!)