I love this episode; the tension is great. The mines of gore are so dark and creepy complete with the background music. I liked the themeing of this level 3, it all flowed nicely and again kept the tension up. I was slightly confused by LF appearing in his tights! Not very uber-baddie I think you'll agree... This is a brilliant final encounter, LF's character just makes it.

Part of the reason I love S6 is we get to see the reactions of the advisers more. This team were great for that and because we saw that it's always made me feel more for the teams so I care if they win or loose.

The causeway debate; I think given the team had no clues other than the 2,3,?,?,? they must have been given the benefit of the doubt provided they tried to find a sensible path. I think the prime numbers sequence should have been the correct one but they should have been given a hint about it somewhere along the way (but then I'm not sure how well I'd do at remembering prime numbers under stress!).

This quest wasn't the dungeon in it's harshest form but the team were good and tackled what was thrown at them well (once they'd got past the hall of choice anyway )

I noticed that one of the advisers started to spellcast BACKFIRE when in the room with the witch shooting at them and were given the absolutely huge hint from Pickle that they should just make a run for it instead. To me casting the spell would have made sense instead of legging it. For Greystag to then tell them to discard it in the next room because it was dangerous just seemed a bit pointless; I mean why have the spell at all? The only reason I can think of is that it was a means of showing that Greystag was trustworthy.

The issue I have with this series is the transition to level 3 is a bit of a non-event. They just get there in the same way that you travel from room to room. I want a definite marker that the new level is starting. A descender would have done the trick nicely.

On the bright side, the music is good and I also thought the wind effect was neat .

Thank you to everyone in this thread; I've never thought about how JS has a brummie accent, it's given my KM viewing a whole new spin!

Am I correct in thinking that the team never used their second level 1 clue object (being the horn). With the scroll of "Gold to the east, silver to the west" I think they could have taken the gold and the silver and been okay and they would then have had the silver to give to Smirky at the end of the level.

I gave up trying to count the doors myself because of the picture cutting back to the advisers I realised I actually had no idea how many levels they'd gone down by. I can only assume that with the delay from the advisers to the dungeoneer shouting stop, the team would have been given the benefit of the doubt. I guess the descender scene must have been edited a lot and maybe they really did go a lot lot further than they were meant to which is why they got an inescapable corridor of blades when they landed. Another one of those things that we will never know! sighs

I'm also still confused if when faced with two doors and the right one having the symbol of the frightknight above it, which one was the right choice to take. I think that it really didn't matter but since I've watched the earlier seasons I've started to get nervous when teams take the left hand door! The later series it really didn't seem to matter at all.

Really enjoying watching a team who all contribute, it makes such a big difference!

It's interesting how this team managed the causeway fine with the usual walking forwards and side-stepping moves and no panicking.

One question to get the token from Gwen and it wasn't a very difficult one. There's been a large range of question difficulty this series. The gatekeeper is a legend! He totally zapped the hobgoblin it is a shame that he doesn't come back again complete with booming voice. Smirkenorff's landing command is so much better than just saying 'land' too.

In the clue room from the scroll it seemed clear to take the book, then with the choice between the gold and the green stone it was less clear so I suspect it would have worked out okay no matter which one they would have taken. At this point it seems like it's all still set up like a normal quest despite the impending end of the season.

Good to see Hordriss again, I don't think we've seen him since the Elita's voice/BAG incident. Is he wandering around with bare feet? I've never noticed that before. The team agree to recharge a staff with blue fire, incidentally the blue fire affect looks pretty cool (pun fully intended ). I liked the introduction of the short story to end the season rather then just timing out on the team. I liked Aesandre in a pantomime evil way and the reason for trying to get Kelly (that she's a blonde) was delivered in such a way that I actually did laugh out loud.

I've enjoyed S5, it's taken a lot of the elements of S4 and improved upon and refined them. The eyeshield sequences add to the themeing but don't drag so much and the rooms look better now that the colours are more muted and less pixellated. The introduction of the spyglasses and the face of the opposition really turned up the tension a notch and made it feel more like an epic battle between good and evil which carries across the different quests and makes the series feel a lot more coherent. The move away from answering 3 questions to get clues is a bit more contentious but I think the causeways go some way towards providing more of a challenge to replace the need for sometimes quite specific general knowledge. We also have the introduction of several characters who last through the next few seasons and some brilliant one-liners .

However I think that there have been some big problems with this series; more than once we've had teams where only one advisor has spoken which reduces my enjoyment of watching. I also think that the difficultly of some of the quests has varied a lot; from the difficultly of questions asked to the level of hinting that some teams got. Some teams were punished with death for things like counting the wrong number of floors in the descender or taking the wrong clue object when there was no clear hint, while some teams seem to pass through the dungeon with some kind of halo, it seems whatever items they take it will work out in the end. I don't think the first team to make it to level 3 were particularly good and I feel a bit sorry for the teams I thought were better who didn't get as far. Some of these problems are dealt with by the time we get to the next series, so there is a positive outcome

I'm trying to decide if I should dive straight into watching S6 or if I should wait and mull over S5 first with the happiness of still having S6 to watch since it's my favourite...

Elves are more susceptible to the cold than humans are they? Well then why is pickle wearing the equivalent of shorts and t-shirt while Treguard's sitting there in full winter gear complete with cloak? Hmm bad continuity I think, would have been much simpler to change the dialogue so that it was along the lines of 'it really is cold, because even Pickle is cold, and we know that elves don't feel the cold as much as humans do' .

Oh no, another team where only one of the advisers speaks! The guy who was speaking wasn't bad, but we all know teams like this come to a sticky end eventually.

I like the gatekeeper, I think he should have been used more instead of random characters at the end of level 1. He would have been a really good old style guardian, asking 3 questions and sticking the dungeoneer with the pike if they didn't get enough right!

I can see why they got confused about how many floors they were going down, the windows are nearly as big as the doors and 7 down is a long way and certainly harder to count then the 1 down of other teams. On a random tangent, do you think that descenders can go up? The team had no chance in the corridor of blades; they stepped onto it and they were sliced almost immediately! Although they took the fright knight door it seemed somewhat harsh to give them a room they didn't stand a chance of surviving. It seemed a bit of a disproportionate response to me.

New team and they all speak, hurrah!

On another note, it's been interesting to watch how during the course of the series the spyglasses have been better integrated into the quests. They've gone from being snippets of conversation that don't have much to do with the plot to a method for gathering vital information (passwords, causeway codes etc.). It's all building up to series 6 which is my absolute favourite

I've really enjoyed reading this thread with everyone's opinions on how level 2 could have been different . I'm afraid I don't have any detailed analysis to offer, but my tuppence worth

My reading of the scroll was just to take the silver, if it was a cryptic clue about spells then I completely missed it too. The choice of the clue objects between the feather and the fool on a stick isn't that easy; if Treguard had done some hinting maybe about how Motley had helped them before so could prove useful if they helped him out again then fair enough (maybe this did happen and never made it into the final edit), but given that choice I'm not sure what I would have taken. I think the painful part of this is that the team so nearly took it but then didn't. I think Chris is judged a bit harshly in this; everyone complains when the dungeoneers just do what they're told and have to be prompted to say and do anything and then when this lad has his own opinions on their quest it's his fault for taking the wrong item shrugs.

I hadn't thought about if the spells were the right thing to buy from JS before, it's a very interesting point. However it is quite in character for JS to attempt to sell the team something of no use and then have to be pressed before he offers them something that they do need. I think the CHANGE and SWITCH spells would have done exactly the same thing and Chroblin was meant to happen, so the main issue to me is how would they get out of it and how would they get the firestone. We know that Motley could have changed them back. I'm also going to speculate that maybe, since they were returning to where they started from in level 2, they might come back through into that room at the end of the level and by that point have the magic they needed to free the gem. I know it's a horrible idea because the only was is meant to be forwards, but this level 2 story was based upon the awful concept of returning back to where they started from. Throughout the whole of level 2 I did keep thinking that it would have solved all their problems if they'd managed to hold onto their firestone from level 1.... (I do know you can't keep objects between levels ).

I didn't really like this incarnation of level 2 at all. Returning to the beginning of the level grates against everything the adventurer's code is meant to say. Chroblin was funny for about the first 2 minutes, then I felt a bit sorry for the team who seemed to have one of the most drawn out deaths in the shows history and one that made them seem a lot sillier then they were. A lot of the younger teams have seemed to get a lot more hints then this bunch did. Have to agree with Drassil (albeit over 2 years later) that this level 2 felt like it was made for a different quest, but seemed a bit too tempting for the production team to use. In my mind this again backs up that the dungeoneer would have turned into a goblin no matter what magic or item they'd bought from JS.

The blocker death is one of my favourites from this season I remember it from when I was little and being suspicious of innocent looking walls for a while afterwards!

I think calling this team cheats is way too harsh. My reasoning for this:

1. The Gwen situation. They took her token, in some quests this would seem to be enough to get the help required to progress. To have to answer questions on top of this makes it a trickier challenge to start with (compared to other quests this series, I'm not even going to start on the series 3 comparisons...). The questions themselves were in my opinion, quite difficult. I think the main issue people have with this is that it was stated at the beginning that she wanted two correct answers and then gave the password with one. The team was lucky to be given this yes, but they certainly didn't cheat.

2. The BAG spell. They definatly cast it in the wrong place becuase they thought the haunting was the voice. It's easy for us all to see that it was a FWS but to give the team the benefit they didn't know what they were looking for and opting for trying to bag the chattering teeth skull isn't the silliest mistake I've seen a team make. Again they were lucky that they were allowed to use the spell again, but they weren't cheating; it was the fault of the production team that they weren't prepared for them using the spell early so they had to let them off with it. And if they had been finished here then we wouldn't have had the opportunity for more Pickle complaining about Elita banter...

3. The causeway of death. While we will never know if they were too slow it seems more likely they were in loosing status over the BAG spell and since they couldn't win had to be killed off. I don't think this was the best way to end them, but it was one of the easier ways.

Anyway, I liked this team. They all contributed and were into it without panicking! I salute any team who have thought about how they can direct their dungeoneer at anything other than 90 degree angles The descriptions of the rooms were brief but useful; where the exit is and anything extraordinary. If they'd been given the quest some other teams had I'm sure they would have made it at least into level 3 .

I only realised on their second episode that they were all from Challoner's boys school, that's not far from me, in fact my mum used to teach there! Although it does seem a bit odd to give a school as where you're from, it's not unusual for people to travel from quite long distances to get to school so it's better to say they're all from there (their common ground) then giving the names of a couple of far flung places .

New team. They look really young! Chris not being able to read the scroll was strange, he must be trying to look down and not looking through his glasses, who knows? Not very helpful to have a dungeoneer with even further reduced vision!

Hi Nathan and welcome

A question for you then; which is your favourite style of pooka, the S4 2D ones or the later green GCI style ones?

This is an exciting episode, very action packed. My initial thoughts on the CoB was that they were clipped by one, but happy they survived.

It seems that pretty much all the teams enter the block and tackle room at a 45 degree angle. Maybe this was done on purpose to see how they coped with it, it certainly made things interesting!

I've really enjoyed series 4 . While I do remember parts of series 3, it was from 4 onwards that I vividly remember what happened and I admit I'm a heathen, I really prefer the outside locations; the forests, the castles complete with crazy colours and I think the eye-shield sequences were a brilliant idea, the whole dungeon world felt bigger and the quests more epic. Series 1-3 and 8 (level 1) feel so much more claustrophobic by comparison. I can see however, if you adored S1-3 why you'd feel slightly betrayed by the direction the programme took.

I think that S4 suffered from some of the technology being new, I felt that the backgrounds for S5 and 6 looked a lot nicer because they weren't so pixelated and the colours weren't so bright.

The introduction of Pickle worked well (other than when he entered the dungeon, which was just a bit weird becuase it give the impression you could just teleport around the place, which made me think, why do you have to spend all this time working towards level 3 if you could just zap yourself there?..). It allowed Treguard to remain relatively neutral but with Pickle there it too the edge of the harshness off. I think it made the clues and advice the advisers were given more even across the teams, even if we were sick of hearing the same lines over and over. I think a lot of that is made worse by watching episodes closer together, rather than having to wait a week between them like back in the day

Roll on series 5

Woo winning team! Have to agree that after their tense beginning and middle of level 3, having a door monster and then a final room with just a little haunting did feel like an anti-climax. Saving the final encounter for the final chamber would have been better imo, certainly the final encounters of S6 are a lot more exciting. I was dead impressed with the guiding through the corridor of blades, they were so calm. I remember watching this as a kid and squeaking really loudly covering my mouth because I was so nervous/excited that my mum had to come check some horrible accident hadn't befallen me!

I don't feel the team had it too easy, it seemed to me like an average difficultly quest but the team were brilliant and made it look easy. The older teams normally do better because they have better general knowledge and tend to be less overexcited (note my choice of words, they're still excited and still enjoying it; they have to to be a good team).

I liked their role-playing with the brandy and Brother Mace, that scene makes me giggle when I watch it even now . I'm not sure I liked that they had to carry that bottle all the way through level 1 and most of the way through 2 before they could use it, so it limited the scenarios they could have because they had to hold onto it for so long. Maybe having the bottle described to them and then picking it up in level 2 would have been better. Moving to the self contained level arcs in the later series was a good move I think.

The thought crossed my mind that if the production team had been less forgiving they could have killed them off when they agreed to pledge themselves to Malice. That she just disappeared for a room seemed pretty lucky to me. I remember watching this in 1990 and having such a sinking feeling that they'd made the wrong choice and something bad was going to happen as a result. Fortunately it didn't .

I enjoyed watching this team; they really seemed to be enjoying themselves and getting into it. Unfortunately they were too excitable to get very far. When they only got 1/3 in the clue room I thought they were doomed and I think they did from the reactions on their faces. Their poor dungeoneer must have been nearly deaf by the end with all the shouting the team were doing.

I think that this team would have done really well if they'd been a little bit older so their enthusiasm was a little more controlled. Definitely entertaining though! I can forgive a lot of ineptness if the team are making the most of it. If I'd been on KM I would have been so excited I don't think I would have made much sense at all to anyone watching!

With regards to this team's death, I'm not completely decided if they were killed off deliberately because they didn't have all of the steps, but I would say that with the control/movement style of their dungeoneer it wouldn't surprise me if he did make the jump and then did take a step forward which put him off the edge. Having said that there was no way this team were going to win, they might have finished level 2 if their luck had held out but that's about the best I could foresee, so maybe it was decided that that was as good a place to finish them as any.

ETA: I can actually see why they thought that there might be a door in the level 2 oracle/clue room where there actually isn't. If you look at that wall you can see a break in the skirting at the bottom and the wall is also darker, it's meant to be only an alcove, but their attempt to go for it isn't as silly as it first appears.

The beam room with the missing floor pieces always provides entertainment from the sudden panic of having to direct their dungeoneer in anything that isn't right angles! The same kind of problems also cropped up so many times with the causeway puzzles in the later series, with all this 'shuffle left' and 'shuffle right' style directions. I'm always impressed when I see a team who have thought about this and go for the clock directions (I seem to have a memory of a team using compass point directions too, but I'm not entirely sure).

Anyway, back to the quest; this team probably panicked a bit when the skulls appeared and came to a sticky end. I thought they stepped off the path once before they actually died too.

Next team, Russ and co. I quite like them; they recognised the clue room for what it was and bless them for their reaction to getting the first riddle wrong, so frustrating! I don't think I would have known the answer to that when I was a kid!

Having taken the egg I don't think there was any way they weren't going down the serpents mouth. The graphics all moving and the exit graphic was just a little odd. With this and the fishing the portal from the pool it felt like the production team were having a play with what they could do, but to me it felt a little silly.

Motley's riddle was confusing to me; it wasn't really a riddle and more of a guess the mime.

Olaff is a character that I consign to the 'I'd rather not be reminded that they existed' bucket (that's the one where Ah Wok also is...) they're childish at best.

On the whole I'm enjoying series 3 but I think it's a little too repetitive for me because of the limited number of rooms. The pacing of the levels also seems slightly off to me; in my mind a level takes about an episode to complete. In this series the time taken for a level is slightly shorter than this but it feels like it takes forever because we see the same rooms over and over again from team to team (you can imagine how much I loved series 8 due to this....). I also prefer the later series because the teams weren't disposed of so rapidly you actually got to know them and care about what happened to them. Some of this series just feels like watching lambs go to the slaughter.

A thought that occurred to me while watching this which is common to a couple of other quests this series is the awkwardness of manoeuvring the dungeoneer out of the way of the Dreadnort once they've given the correct password. It seems like one of those things they couldn't do anything about but it spoils the flow of the game a little.

What did this team do which meant they didn't get a ride on Smirky? Instead they get the descender, maybe it was that they didn't have any money to pay a fare shrugs

The skull that LF sent down through the pool to get January was a little pointless, it was in the way so they ended up walking through it and it didn't seem to harm their life force or anything.

The scene with Scaramonger was quite a funny one with him wanting something for his mum for her birthday. So they took the spell scroll which they shouldn't have. I do wonder how much use a spell which turns your enemies swords to rust would be; I'm sure you could still be done quite a nasty injury with a rusty sword....

I didn't think it was too obvious what the ring would do; in fact I thought it was very subtle compared to some of the hints teams have had from the spy glass scenes. While it was suggested that the ring would allow the wearing to mimic LF he was also making it clear that the wearer would be discovered if it was used and bad things would happen, so I can see why the team didn't think to use it.

New team. "Hello, can you hear me?" is a novel way to start but as good as any! I found it interesting that there actually were symbols on the floor that the dungeoneer could see, although they clearly weren't in quite the same place as they appeared on the screen!

And finally, my favourite play out with the fright knights patrolling on Mount Fear

This episode wasn't a good one as far as causeways went! While I commented that the team were likely in losing status at the end of the last episode I wasn't ever expecting their appearance in this episode to be quite so brief! The "we're dead Alan" comment from one of the advisers was hilarious . They were a bright team but their struggles with directing were their downfall.

Causeway number two was a bit of a disaster too. I also feel a bit sorry for January reading 'defrost' incorrectly because that is forever going to haunt her.

I didn't really like the level 1 story, there was a bit too much going on with the Sidress and Motley banter so that the dungeoneer didn't really have much to say. I did laugh at Treguard's suggestion that they could abandon Motley and then take two objects!

It's nice to have that confirmed

I think its a credit to the makers that they made the dwarf tunnels so versatile with the different lighting etc. I was utterly convinced as a kidsie that they were an entirely different place to the first set .

Thanks for that snippet from Summayya, they seemed like a nice bunch and having a sense of humour over it proves it . I think that with hindsight they did have one of the harder level 2s. I think future quests were tweaked accordingly to make things like the clue object choices less difficult. I didn't remember Ben's level 2 clue room being only a 2 out of 2 choice, but I shall watch with interest when I get to those episodes.

Nice level 2 plot, it was quite involved taking the box from LF pretending to be Hordriss pretending to be Harris the beggar. Then exchanging that with the witch for the beauty spell. Then the gauntlet seemed to be a bit of a random add on to their level to use the other clue item the scroll hinted at.

I like the Rocks of Brewin scenery. I know it is very pink but I love how it makes the dungeon seem huge. Again I think a lot of these scenes are only used once more or never, which is a bit of a shame because they are some of my favourites.

Didn't really like the way that Alan just materialised on the deck of the ship. Only a minor thing but it didn't seem quite right.

Another good team on the whole, they all communicate and they seem to be enjoying it. Their main problem is with directing their dungeoneer, they seem to end up zig-zaging a lot and I think they were lucky not to have a causeway in level 2.

I think not knowing Elita's name for calling may have put this team into losing status. The advisers were trying to get Alan to ask a couple of times but maybe he couldn't hear too well. Elita certainly didn't give him much of a chance to get a word in anyway!

Skarkill and his goblins in the dwarf tunnels was a bit creepy. I remember this being such a long week to wait to see what happened to them being in level 3. It was a bit of an anti-climax for the next episode.

"You're not going to fall off anything" count = 6

Okay, not too much to add to this that hasn't been said but anyway...

Not an amazing episode; level one is more interesting in my opinion then last series but I'm still a bit bored of seeing it already. I think the lack of much variation in the rooms we see doesn't really help.

I like the flaming stormgiest, the music they use with it is good and tense if not scary.

Sly Hands as Coonan the Vegetarian is so silly but so funny.

One of the advisors keeps telling Alan that he's not going to fall off anything. It's good to know I guess Speaking of which it's interesting that the level 2 causeway that Matt from team 1 fell off on is used in level 1 on this quest. They're certainly a bit cautious crossing it. I think the similarity in a couple of the colours on this one doesn't help with seeing if the dungeoneer is standing in the right place. The causeway music used here is good, adds interest to the crossing.

I'm really saddened that watching it again I can clearly see they only have one section of dwarf tunnels that they reuse by changing the colours and sending them different ways. I thought they went for miles when I was a kid!

"You're not going to fall off anything" count = 4

I've just watched those clips and I'm actually shocked I never noticed the continuity error with the food before. You're right that it really does look dodgy with the death; we get a long shot of the advisers and then back to the dungeon and the rooms a different colour, the foods gone and oh look, Nathan's fallen down the hole.

Shame we'll never know what actually happened, but yes it certainly looks like it's been altered.