Series 4 Episode 14

[Tom41]

I would have posted this earlier, typing up while the ep was being broadcast, but my laptop's power supply decided to fail on me - and the battery was dead. So I had to take the tape to one of my other computers to get it typed up. Plus I had to do the 'forgot password' thing on the forum before I could post it.
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Resumed from time-out with them getting the eye-shield and into the forest.

Came outside the Crazed Heffer inn, with one of those early Pookas floating around outside - so had to get in fairly quickly! Nearly walked into the Pooka before entering the door

Motley was inside the inn, and gave them some food. Then Jeremy told Motley a good joke (the ancient chicken-cross-the-road one), so Motley gave them a JOKE spell in return! Then Motley led Jeremy out of the inn and down the steps, into the forest again.

Next was Oakley's Glen. Oakley set them 3 riddles as usual, they scored 2/3. Gained the information that 'the glove holds nothing', so it was fairly obvious which items to take! (gold and egg-timer). The Pooka appeared again to chase them out of the clearing! I quite like the scary early Pooka music!

In front of the Fortress of Dungarth, an Assassin appeared. At first they tried to run away, but Pickle said that they could just shout at the assassin! I think they got caught by the assassin before they managed to shout at it, but were let off...

Next they found a giant lizard! Treguard suggested they didn't stop too long... so they sidestepped to the right to get away fairly quickly!

In the same area used at the beginning for the 'weeping door', except this time there was an entrance to the moving corridor. A skull appeared so they had to quickly get into the corridor!

Picked up some food in the corridor, then turned over the egg-timer and put it down. This stopped the conveyor from moving, allowing them to escape through a door to the right.

Fatilla the Hun guarded the wellway, and he wanted to 'blip and blop' the dungeoneer with his club! Tried to bribe him with gold, but he still refused to let him through the well - but agreed to make the bashing quick and painless
They had to use the JOKE spell on Fatilla to make him hysterical, then get down the wellway while he was distracted!

Landed on a table. There was a goblin statue with 'evil eyes' which was draining the life force quickly! They took a cloth off the table and used it to cover the eyes of the statue, stopping the life force drain! Motley and Mellisandre came in and congratulated them on their quick thinking!
Mellisandre gave them a riddle, and they gave the correct answer! So the team gained a 'joker' playing card, and exited the room.

sadly we never got to see them use the Joker card, because the next room was the Block and Tackle. Walked too quickly to the left, and the floor crumbled away causing Jeremy to fall down... Ooh, nasty!

Next team was Giles's team. The first couple of scenes seemed to have been edited a lot, notice how quickly they decide what to do with the Spindizzy and get onto the 'cup' path!
Even Treguard's speech sounds edited "Now listen team *cut* Choose now, the quest..." etc. I think they cut out the bit with Treguard explaining about the place of choice and what the two paths are, as well as Pickle saying 'make them choose'.
Is this Challenge editing, or how the original was?

[TheBrollachan]

I'm sorry but Treguard asking where specifically the came from was such and obvious set up for Pickle's joke...
"The New Forest, what was wrong with the old one?"

The Block and tackle does seem to be responsible for a high proportion of dungeon deaths in comparision to the amount of times it was used. About 4 times so far I think with 3 of those resulting in dungeoneers being killed.

[MoanaLiza]

Next team was Giles's team. The first couple of scenes seemed to have been edited a lot, notice how quickly they decide what to do with the Spindizzy and get onto the 'cup' path!
Even Treguard's speech sounds edited "Now listen team *cut* Choose now, the quest..." etc. I think they cut out the bit with Treguard explaining about the place of choice and what the two paths are, as well as Pickle saying 'make them choose'.
Is this Challenge editing, or how the original was?

I have a feeling that the Place of Choice scene may have been cut slightly, due to Giles team being the last team of the series. I look forward to seeing episodes 15 and 16 on Monday and Tuesday and I presume that series 5 starts next Wednesday. Anyway back to the episode and I wonder if Jeremy would've got out of the B&T had the advisors directed him towards the right door or would he have been hit with a brick.

At the end of todays ep another cheeky comment from the announcer, reguarding hairloss. Don't understand what he was getting at though!

[Billy]

So, let me get this straight...Motley's a comedian, yet after all this time, he's never heard the 'Why did the chicken cross the road' joke?
And was it me, or was that Brother Mace behind Motley in The Crazed Heffer? Still, I LOVED the giant lizard, you really believed it was big. If only the team had gone for the right door in the Block and Tackle, rather than the left...

I did like the Challenge announcer comment at the end, though, something like "Sadly, since this episode was made, everyone in it has lost their hair"!

[HarveyTowers]

We did however tantalisingly get a quick view of the Assassin's face as they turned around.

[keke]

awww i did feel sorry for the team that died in that episode. Sure there is the stick to the right rule but they were aimed more towards the left door than the right. Maybe i just feel bad because i like it when there is a younger team on. The quest seems to go faster with younger people

[Billy]

Not only are the lines heavily scripted, but so are the camera angles. "Close up on Treguard, wide shot of Pickle and the advisors, close up on Pickle for the last line, close up on Treguard, quest begins" has been used for practically every episode so far. Series 2 wasn't much better ((Close up on Treguard)"Your next stage is Amber..." (Zoom out to wide shot) "...and on Condition Red, you are in grave peril...").

Enough moaning. Wasn't the music outside the Crazed Heffer brilliant? You had the jolly music of the inn, and the moody undertones of the Pooka making a great contrast. In the inn (ha!), Motley gives them a JOKE spell after Jeremy gives him one about some chicken crossing a road, I forget how it ends.

"Oh-oh" they say as Oakley's face appears, but they do fairly well on his riddles, getting 2. After screaming at an assassin in Dungarth, they find what looks like Brother Mace, still in his lizard form, wanting revenge. Looks like that Etruscan Brandy is more powerful than I thought.

Fatilla appears at the Level 1 wellway again, but they get rid of him using the JOKE spell, which presumably sent a message into Fatilla's brain showing him the CITV schedule in 10 years time. The result is that he begins laughing hysterically, and they make their way into Level 2.

Beware the evil eyes! (?!) Maybe it's a descendant of Medusa, though not as powerful. They throw a cloth over the statue to stop the lifeforce drain, when suddenly Muttley and Smelly Melly appear, congratulating them. They get a joker card after correctly answering Mellisandre's riddle, and exit in triumph. Nothing can stop them now, they're having such a good time, they're having a ball!

Except the Block and Tackle. They go too far to the left, and perish. Shame, they were doing well.

Another new team, then! Giles the dungeoneer, and advisors Robin, Andrew, and 20-foot high Bret. They choose the cup, and begin their quest as we time out. Unfortunately, it's now December...

[Canadanne]

Wait a minute... so Motley has a mysterious female friend with long curly reddish hair, who's older than she looks but never seems to get any older, and whom he calls "Mels" while praising her skill at rhyming something with "river"? Now she just needs to call someone sweetie and fall out of a window... come to think of it, she does have a habit of falling through trapdoors without coming to any harm...

And was it me, or was that Brother Mace behind Motley in The Crazed Heffer?

I too thought it looked like Michael Cule, and then I wondered if it was actually Tim Child making a cameo appearance, but I'm not convinced it's either of them.

[Maud]

Next team was Giles's team. The first couple of scenes seemed to have been edited a lot, notice how quickly they decide what to do with the Spindizzy and get onto the 'cup' path!
Even Treguard's speech sounds edited "Now listen team *cut* Choose now, the quest..." etc. I think they cut out the bit with Treguard explaining about the place of choice and what the two paths are, as well as Pickle saying 'make them choose'.
Is this Challenge editing, or how the original was?

I have a feeling that the Place of Choice scene may have been cut slightly, due to Giles team being the last team of the series. I look forward to seeing episodes 15 and 16 on Monday and Tuesday and I presume that series 5 starts next Wednesday. Anyway back to the episode and I wonder if Jeremy would've got out of the B&T had the advisors directed him towards the right door or would he have been hit with a brick.

At the end of todays ep another cheeky comment from the announcer, reguarding hairloss. Don't understand what he was getting at though!

Team captain Brett writes:
Yes, it was cut. In real life we spent about five minutes negotiating the Spin dizzy.

[EvelynMason]

This was the episode that was shown by Challenge this last Sunday. Not always possible to take in a viewing at the 10 am start time but they put on again one repeat episode at 11-30 later that night. (Why not both episodes ?)

The team came to a premature end with a demise in the block and tackle room (a nasty situation that catches out so many contestants and is so hard to get through) but other than that they were going so well up until that point.

I enjoyed the scene with the tavern (The Crazed Heifer) and the Pooka outside was really menacing and with it some eerie music to add to the suspense. Motley inside was fun as always and a big improvement on Alec Westwood from the earlier series. "Why did the chicken cross the road" - "Stop laughing you lot !" - and then the camera pans to the team in the studio and I'm sure they genuinely believed it was directed at them.

I like the tree 'monsters' such as Oakley the guardian of the forest and the riddles he gave were quite difficult I thought. "What is the tallest tree ?" - I always believed it was the Redwood tree but they never provided an answer for it. I knew the Mistletoe and Sherwood Forest ones but they provided two right answers to allow Oakley to believe they were genuine 'tree friends'

The Olaf type pillager (Fatilla the Hun is his name ?) who accepts the gold (and then changes his mind which I thought was a bit mean spirited ) is a character I can't really warm to but then I never liked the original Olaf from the earliest series. If they were not in possession of the Joke spell they would have been 'blipped and blopped' by his large cudgel so relief they were able to proceed.

The evil statue with the harmful eyes was a strange moment and not something you would maybe expect to encounter in the series but was impressed that they thought quickly enough to put the towel over it's head to prevent further damage. (I hadn't even thought of that)

Once again the block and tackle room is largely unfair and causes such a state of panic that there's so little time for thinking and dungeoneers (and team) can so easily be panicked into making fatal errors. I don't know (or can't remember) and what stage of the series they removed this from the show but felt sorry for any team that was unfortunate enough to come in contact with it.

[s4t8brett]

Thanks, Evelyn!

The team who failed to complete the Block and Tackle in this episode (we met them before and afterwards) did seem to have their dungeoneer continuing to walk forwards towards the wrong exit when the floor fell away. Had the dungeoneer sidestepped to the right they might have made it through. But I agree with what you put about the unfairness and duress caused when encountering the room for the first time!

[Morghanna]

Team 7 collected the eye-shield and made their way to the Crazed Heifer Inn. They told Motley a joke and received a "JOKE" spell in return. Their joke wasn't as good as Martin's, but it was still better than Leo's. Even tho it was an old joke, Motley hadn't have heard it, so maybe humour was a new concept in the medieval era....
Did ok against Oakley (2/3) and were told which item not to take! Took the hour-glass & gold.
Directed Jeremy past the assassin and the giant reptile with no problems, then entered a (bladeless) conveyorbelt. Jeremy just didn't seem to have enough hands to pick up the food, set down the hour glass and hold the gold & the eye-shield.
Bribed Fatilla with the gold, but he cheated them, so (with a little prompting) they used their spell to distract him and entered the well.

Landed in a room with a life-force draining statue. Very quick thinking to instruct Jeremy to cover the statue with the cloth from the table.
They answered Melly's riddle easily enough to earn a "Joker" card.
Into the block&tackle room. They reacted very quickly again but sadly they aimed for the left-hand exit (perhaps because they were already facing in that direction?) and the floor crumbled beneath them just before they reached the door.

Considering that they looked very young, team 7 were a good team and it was a shame that their quest ended so suddenly. Lead advisor Alexander was particularly quick-witted.

Team 8 chose the path of the crown-quest and just had to time to jump from the spindizzy before time-out arrived. Giles had to rush his jump slightly, but landed neatly.

[asrl07]

I thought the block and tackle room in this episode was particularly unfair. The dungeoneer entered at a 45 degree angle facing to the left, facing where the floor crumbles away first. With the panic when the room starts to go haywire, the advisors have very little time to realign the dungeoneer and direct him to the right door. It is much easier if the dungeoneer is facing the rear wall when he/she enters, then it is sidestep right, run forward, next room.

Working my way through the series, I have noticed that because the directional instructions are of the form "walk forward", "sidestep left/right", the advisors have no problem in directing the dungeoneer at right angles, but struggle if they have to move at an angle. I'm a little surprised that no team who has applied has thought to try and train directing the dungeoneer by angle or clock face, which greatly increases the freedom of movement. With that block and tackle room and the horrible entry angle, the first instruction is turn 45 degrees right. The dungeoneer can see their feet so cann judge what a 45 degree turn is. That would have put them facing the best direction to make it out of there quickly.

[s4t8brett]

Hi asrl07,

I agree with everything you said about that room!

In the case of our team, we did train using clock face instructions in the garden, but in episode 16 Giles was very close to the falling area and so he 'died' on the first take because (as you say) it's not fair to start so close when most other teams have not, particularly when you haven't seen the room before and haven't had any appreciable time to observe the overall pattern of its disintegration. On the second take, getting Giles far away from that area with sidesteps to the RIGHT as soon as practicable was my priority. However, had Giles taken four less enthusiastic 'large steps', the fairness of the challenge might have been more agreeable.

I have a suspicion that we might have been put in at the same angle (albeit on Level 3) as if to show the room wasn't unfair in those circumstances (because we appeared to overcome it, even though they didn't) if there's any mileage in the idea that Jeremy and the Three A's were quite intentionally put in a difficult situation due to suffering homesickness. But, again, that might not be the truth of it; it would seem also to imply that Jeremy had actually landed in Level 3, having inexplicably skipped Level 2.

I totally agree that a calm, 45 degree turn would have been ideal. Perhaps, if 45 degree turns were required more often in each quest, Dungeoneers and their advisers would have been more ready to deploy them.

[asrl07]

Thanks, Evelyn!

The team who failed to complete the Block and Tackle in this episode (we met them before and afterwards) did seem to have their dungeoneer continuing to walk forwards towards the wrong exit when the floor fell away. Had the dungeoneer sidestepped to the right they might have made it through. But I agree with what you put about the unfairness and duress caused when encountering the room for the first time!

The problem they had was the dungeoneer entered at a 45 degree angle pretty much facing the left exit, so that likely motivated them to send him forward quickly to that exit, unfortunately he had no chance of getting there before the floor fell away. It was a rotten starting position for the dungeoneer. Is this part of the artificial difficulty element, to make the same rooms vary significantly in difficulty for different teams?