El Rescate del Talisman

[Drassil]

Because of changes to the Archivo RTVE website, the link in my previous post no longer works in the way it did.

However, the latest El Rescate del Talismán episode they've uploaded has links to the other episodes (eight in total).

This latest episode is from the third and final series (1994). It's fascinating in how it differs from El Rescate del Talismán Series 1 and 2 (e.g. rolling gameplay) and from Knightmare, while mixing handpainted rooms and photo locations in an almost fanfiction-like way.

[Canadanne]

The official Archivo RTVE website currently has six episodes of El Rescate del Talismán available to watch, at https://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/pro ... o-de-rtve/. No registration required.

I've finally had a chance to watch all of these - wow, I can't believe how many episodes are available now (21 at time of writing)! Some scattered thoughts, spoilery in places...

- The "first programme" that's available to watch, dated 29th May 1991, is not the actual first episode (I think it's about episode 6, as the series started on 24th April 1991). Having trawled through the TV listings in the Spanish newspaper archives, I believe the reported total of 78 episodes is also too low - it's somewhere around 85/86, but Series 2 is a mess of regional variations so it's hard to pin down exactly. Series 1 probably had 31 episodes and Series 3 had 29. The first series was the only one to air across two years, with a gap of more than a year before Series 2 in April 1993.

- It has become apparent that the Series 1 & 2 character credits on the IMDb are completely wrong. María Sanz is listed as "witch" and Marga González as Velda/Amazon and "maid", but it must be the other way round because María Sanz is credited on screen as the Lady of the Lake in Series 3 and it's definitely the Velda/princess actress.

Similar confusion exists with the male cast of Series 1 which has taken me a while to untangle. I'm pretty sure the Lord of Evil actor is also playing both Rufo and Tados (guy's got range!), and I had previously read somewhere, probably on the IMDb, that the Lord of Evil was Daniel Fortea. This seemed to fit with Miguel Ángel Suárez playing the king, as he would have been in his fifties at the time. *However* it's Miguel who is credited on screen as the phantom in Series 3, and that's surely the same actor who played Tados and the original Lord of Evil (his voice and movements are so distinctive). It's now clear that the wrong Miguel Ángel Suárez has been associated with ERDT on the IMDb - the fifty-something was a Puerto Rican actor who mostly worked there and in South America rather than Spain, and I found a clip of him in Stir Crazy which bore no resemblance to anyone in this show. I think it should be this actor who can be seen as a window cleaner in a 1991 Spanish comedy film, looking very much like Rufo! This must mean Daniel Fortea was actually the king?? (Helpfully he has no other screen credits whatsoever and shares his name with a composer who died in 1953, so I'm unable to find anything that confirms it.)

- Sometimes they do nothing to earn a clue object (just find it on the floor) and don't even have to figure out when or how to use it, because the Magician just tells them. What's the point?!

- Marga González does a good raven voice!

- Quite a comical scene in the second episode, with the Magician doing a little dance with hand signals to help with the guiding, and then the male advisor getting *really* carried away screaming directions at the top of his lungs - take a chill pill, little dude!!!

- Love the random pussycat in a couple of episodes!

- OMG, the fourth team are an utter shambles from the outset, with the poor dungeoneer practically doing the hokey-cokey while all three girls gabble directions at him - the Magician has to tell them not to talk all at once as they'll confuse him, and Rufo has to start beckoning him forward to help with the guiding! None of them can tell left from right either, which doesn't help!

- I like the Rock/Paper/Scissors scenario where they use the paper to clear some rocks from the path. (I initially thought they'd taken the wrong item as it seemed like they were meant to choose the "winner" out of paper or dagger - I must have missed something in the explanation. Or does it not matter which item they take, as the later obstacle will be adjusted according to their choice?)

- Aww, cute bunny in the intro to the fifth episode!

- So the snake in the broken arch room really can get you - quite scary!!

- I feel like there's a slight overuse of tricky winding paths in this programme. They have to navigate them sooooooo slowly, it's not exactly riveting television! (Side note, I've started to find myself shouting "Sigue, sigue, sigue!" at the screen whenever the emissary stops unnecessarily, LOL.)

- Unexpected Grimwold cameo!

- Using the magic sponge to empty the pool is a nice variation. I was startled to see Rufo carrying the emissary on his shoulders - can you imagine Paul Valentine doing that?!

- Oof, mangled by the Mills of Doom - I was reminded of Stuart on the Geek Week episode ("It was the smallest jump ever!"). Fun to see people being killed in ways that never happened on Knightmare!

- Wow, it really was possible to fail on the Spanish version despite all those extra lives (and it's quite refreshing to see, after most episodes have the same formulaic climax). They don't half rub it in, with all this "You've made me sad, you've made the king sad, you've let your families down, you don't get any of these amazing prizes"... how bad do you want these kids to feel?! The shot of the Lord of Evil fondling the consoles was hilarious and I'm not sure if it was meant to be!

- Interesting to see that the Spanish version borrows rooms from Le Chevalier du Labyrinthe as well as original Knightmare!

- Uraut flying away on her broomstick looks really cool.

- I was quite disappointed not to see the cobra after all the talk of it being on the loose!

- One team were clearly doomed to failure on the serpent's tongue, but I wasn't expecting a massive axe to materialise out of nowhere and smash him into oblivion - that really made me jump! (Having seen something similar happen in later episodes, I'm starting to get the impression they didn't have a falling animation to use in the Spanish version?!)

- Did anyone understand Grom's scorpion riddle? I couldn't make head nor tail of it, with something about wings and thunder??

- The one where they grab everything off the table at the end is funny, especially as the one item they don't bother with is the sacred talisman they've supposedly been questing to recover for their family.

- I can't quite imagine Paul Valentine kicking a female dungeoneer up the arse either, LOL!

- I know they don't consume the contents of the knapsack in this version but I couldn't help feeling alarmed by Uraut putting hemlock in it!!

- Grom telling the emissary "Don't be scared, I don't bite" before biting her arm was quite funny!

- Wow, a team that actually manage to win without losing any lives, Knightmare-style!

- I enjoy feeling smug when I figure out a riddle and the team don't, and since I'm already familiar with all the Knightmare riddles it's been a while since I got to experience this, haha.

- It took me ages to work out how the four objects from Uraut were connected to Grom's riddle. Some of these "clues" are so obscure they're more confusing than helpful!

- Good lord, the Magician is really starting to get carried away with his long irrelevant storytime at the beginning of each episode. (Also, when he told the anecdote about the maiden who offered him food & drink, was anyone else expecting it to be "the Lord of Evil in a dress" rather than "a forest fairy"?)

- Amused by the subtitles "a step to the right no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no" - says it all really!

- Ooo, the Magician has a bit of a Treguard moment, telling off Uraut like Mildread!

- I'm learning lots of nice Spanish names from the contestants on here! Marta seems to have been popular among girls at the time - I wonder if it inspired the naming of our Series 7 character?!

- LOL, what's with the random disembodied voice moaning "Stooooone!" after they walk their emissary off the side of a bridge and a huge boulder squashes him?! (It seems to become relevant later in the quest but it's not at all clear to me how they knew what to do...)

- I love Rufo mimicking all the emissary's movements as the advisors make a hash of guiding him out, hahahaha.

- What happened to emissary Fernando??? They were seemingly told to investigate some rocks, but when they guided him over to them, he vanished for no apparent reason and got replaced. What did they do wrong, apart from taking an age to navigate the room??

- Ooooooooo, Tados and Velda fencing is very cool now I'm more familiar with these characters!

- The last available episode of Series 1 is all kinds of bizarre. First we have Rufo inexplicably diving into one of the holes in the stained glass window room, with a bubbling sound effect. (It seems that both these gaps and the black void in Merlin's throne room have been interpreted as pools of water rather than holes you can fall through.) Then the first appearance of the minecart ride, complete with the actual Indiana Jones theme music - and a couple of scenes later they've added TARDIS sound effects to the fire cave!! Was it getting towards the end of the quest season and they decided to blow the remaining budget on licensing some famous audio tracks for a laugh?! (I reckon they had two huge let-offs in this quest too, in the scorpion room and the fire cave!)

- Interesting that the Vale of Banburn is referred to as Death Valley, which seems to be its original name in Knightmare based on David Rowe's image filenames!

- Onto Series 2 now, with many changes including the introduction of Smirkenorff. Oh no, just when I thought I'd identified pretty much all the filming locations, here's a flight sequence along a river valley that we've never seen before - where's THAT?!

- We appear to have a medieval monk talking about a character from the Asterix comics. It's so weird when they put this pop culture stuff in the French and Spanish versions!

- The host is now physically attacking the advisors because they declined his offer of an enema. It's quite different from Series 1, isn't it!!

- Imagine Treguard deliberately shouting wrong directions like this guy while they're in the Corridor of Blades or trying to navigate a causeway. It's hard enough as it is!

- Blimey, I was not expecting the weeping doors to find their way into the Spanish version! Quite nice to meet a new one after all this time, I suppose...

- Cracking up at the giggly ghost with the high-pitched Mickey Mouse voice! (Miguel Suárez again? He sounds kind of like Rufo and then more like Tados when he drops his voice down low. And he moves like the Lord of Evil...)

- And now a Peggatty appearance!

- I don't think I've ever seen a team use "diagonal left" and "diagonal right" directions before (except possibly in the lion's head room where they have to take a diagonal step to cross the broken path). It's quite efficient for crossing a causeway but also quite risky - he steps *very* close to the edge at times!!

- Interesting that on one occasion they're given the spell for the final confrontation right at the start of their quest. (I was expecting them to use it for something else along the way, and briefly wondered how the hell they were meant to defeat the Lord of Evil before remembering they had that spell!) This makes it much more believable that there are teams who lost because they forgot the magic words, which is something I've read online but found hard to imagine during Series 1.

- Oh hello, the Sphinx gets a bit of an origin story instead of posing riddles for once! Perhaps Brangwen has a similar tale?

- It seems odd that in Series 2 they're only rewarded with the ring of salvation if they *fail* a question and then get lucky with the dice roll! (I don't quite understand when the dice comes into play and when it doesn't in this series - not enough episodes available to identify a pattern. It's obviously not after the first question any more.)

- Flippin' heck, did Isel *have* to put the male emissary's hands round her waist to demonstrate how the transporter pads work? It's quite intimate...! (Then she's holding his hand and promising to "carry you in my heart" - get a room, you two!!)

- I can't get over how quickly and efficiently they complete the transporter pads challenge on this show, compared to Knightmare! (On that note, at least there's a lot less tedious shuffling about in Series 2!)

- A query: in Series 1 they could get away with losing three lives if they made it to the throne room as the Magician would then guide the last emissary forward, but in Series 2 it's no longer the last room, so does that rule still apply? I can't imagine the new Magician guiding them across a causeway, considering he's normally trying to guide them *off* it!

- LOL at the host suggesting "The phone book" in answer to which book told of Ulysses' adventures!

- I would very much *not* like to be the advisor who sits next to the Magician in this series - they're constantly in danger of being whacked round the face with his cloak, poked in the eye and god knows what else!

- Why are pookas randomly used as door markers in this show?!

- It took me quite a while to understand Uraut's riddle about the ducks! (It seems to hinge upon the Spanish "pata" meaning either a leg or a female duck, but I was totally bewildered until I realised this.)

- Is it me or are the Lord of Evil's glowing red eyes a bit skewiff in the last Series 2 episode?! This is the first time we've seen an emissary snatch the talisman off him instead of waiting for him to drop it - this kid is badass, haha!

- And now a couple of eps from Series 3... the third host is considerably more helpful and encouraging than his predecessor, to the point of quite often taking over the guiding when the advisors aren't doing a great job of it! (It's odd how he keeps randomly addressing the camera in between scenes - is he talking to the advisors or the viewers at home?)

- The Lord of Evil has had quite a transformation - it's weird that he's suddenly become chatty when we only ever saw him dance around laughing in the previous two series! I'd love to know if there were any in-universe explanations for this and the changes of host etc.

- Hmmmmm. They must have reclaimed a good 70 talismans by this point, which according to the premise of the show ought to have significantly weakened the Lord of Evil's power (how many of the damn things are there exactly?!) and yet he's now extending his influence across this forest as well, and not reacting half as dramatically to the spells they use against him. I am forced to conclude the plan isn't working!!

- Aww, I love that Smirky's firestones were carried across to the Spanish version! (And his name, which sounds great in a Spanish accent!)

- EVERYTHING IS PURPLE. They've gone all Knightmare Series 4 on us!!

- Did the Druid just say that dragons are absolutely harmless? Are you sure about that?!

- Series 3 seems ridiculously easy - they're always being given information and clue objects without doing anything to earn them, and even when they do have to answer a question first, the rewards are so vital to their quest that they surely would have been given them anyway. On one occasion they appear to get a question wrong, but don't lose a life (even though he said they must answer it "in order to move forward") and still get to choose an object??

- Ooo, the other episode features a never-before-seen view of the charcoal burner's tent. It's fun seeing Knightmare leftovers being used in this!

- The ferryman drops some unexpected Knightmare lore on us, claiming that firestones come from the Earth's core!

- I am super confused as to why the Druid keeps saying they've reached Level 3 when they land on Smirkenorff. Both times this is about five minutes into their quest and there was no mention of Level 2 that I noticed?? What do the levels mean in this show?

- The "spyglass scene" is very Lord Fear & Lissard, although not as funny. I assume the reptilian henchman is Kagor, and he sounds pretty much the same as when Rufo puts on a voice at one point in Series 1, which adds further weight to Miguel Suárez being him as well. It appears he went from playing the Lord of Evil to playing his servant!

- Oh, this team are very good at the causeway with "11 o'clock" and "1 o'clock" diagonal stride directions! (Oops, spoke too soon - they deaded him...)

Damn, I'm really into this programme now and invested in the backstory. Moar episodes pleeeeeeeeeeeease?!