"Welcome watchers of illusion to the Castle of Confusion"
Wasn't that a natty little rhyme? Do you get that fantasy feeling already? Well you should because that's what this is (or was...). In 1986 I believe, Tim Child invented a gameshow based around fantasy, excitement adn computer graphics. That show was Knightmare.
It was set in a magic castle dungeon owned by Treguard, the dungeon master and the idea was that the dungeoneer had to make his way through it without getting 'killed'. The game worked thus: There are four people in a team, one was the dungeoneer and the other 3 were the guiders. The Dungeoneer would make his way through the dungeon BUT he is wearing 'The Helmet of Justice' which was an overgrown helmet. Basically, he could see below him but that was it. It was the guiders job to guide the dungeoneer through the dungeon (the dungeoneer couldn't see in front of him, remember).
There were a couple of rules. First, you could only carry 2 items at once (items were able to be picked up in clue rooms, more later) and there was something called Life-force. In the first 5 series, this was shown as a knight's head gradually decaying until there was nothing left. It was shown via computer graphics but the best indication was the colour behind the head, green meant OK, amber meant 'watch out' and red meant 'severe danger'). Life-force was replaced by putting food into a knapsack that was worn by the dungeoneer.
Occasionally, they were given spells. To activate them they had to spell the name of the spell (see?). Occasionally, some spells needed to be 'disspelled' and that was done by spelling the name of the spell backwards. Ingenious.
The first couple of series just saw the teams questing to find something, like a pendant or something like that although they would have to make their way through the 3 levels of the dungeon avoiding the nasty traps and solving puzzles and riddles that other characters set for them, but on the third level, there would be some nasty person trying to take you out as much as they can (Mogdred, for example). All these other characters were played by actors.
In clue rooms there would be a table and some objects on it. Only two of which are useful. There would usually be an inhabitant of these rooms who would ask 3 riddles. If they got none of them right they would kill the dungeoneer (not really of course! Mary Whitehouse originally thought people were really getting killed. This was before she saw the programme of course.). 1 correct response would pass you on but 2 or 3 would earn you clues as to which items to pick up etc...
Some of the other characters in the dungeons would set mini-quests for the dungeoneer, such as to retrieve something or stop something from happening. If they acheived this, they would get something of great power which would be used in the final bit right near the end of the quest.
More importantly, some of the rooms had floor puzzles. This is when something in the room had to be done, such as get out, but there was often something to do before then, with failure meaning death. Sometimes you would need some sort of clue to get past these which should have been picked up somewhere along the way.
Every year, the dungeon 'evolved'. In the first couple of years, it was a traditional dungeon. Then it was the 'dungeon dimensions' which saw the dungeonner going outside. Then an elf named Pickle joined Treguard in guiding the advisors and Dungeonner in the antechamber. Then, completeing the quest also involved defeating Lord Fear, the baddie. The dungeon dimensions became more and more intricate and in the final series, it went back to being a proper dungeon again, Pickle left and a female Genie called Majida came and helped.
It was a fantastic show and award winning because of the computer graphics ahead of its time. It was these computer graphics that made the game, because it was done with blue screen technology, we saw the graphics, the people in the antechamber saw the graphics (because they had a screen, a 'magic mirror' to see what was going on) BUT the dungeoneer wouldn't have been able to see the graphics, therefore the helmet of justice was used so that he couldn't see and so his advisors had to guide him. It was a fine and clever system.
The show was very well acted for the character parts and some of the characters were almost believeable. Some of them were even quite amusing (Sly Hands, Julius Scaramonger).
Knightmare was the only TV show whose fan club I joined because I loved it. The show was quite addictive but it was over too quickly (I think it was 13 weeks series 1-7, 10 weeks series 8). Each show was only half an hour long and so teams that completed their quest often lasted several shows, at the end of which time stopped for advisors and dungeoneer and they froze (Temporal Disruption). Interesting idea.
It was great basically.
Uppers Very clever and original idea, brilliantly executed.
Downers Over too quickly.
Arguments go on as to whether the show was better when it was more of a dungeon as opposed to being outside but I don't care.
VERDICT: 9.5/10 - A fantastic show greatly missed.
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