A fantasy-themed game show with a drama element. Knightmare ran for eight series on CITV from 1987-1994 and returned for a single online episode in August 2013 (YouTube Geek Week).

While each series had its own variations and nuances, the core elements remained the same. Contestants would undertake a quest in a predominantly mediaeval realm known as the Dungeon (its locations created principally by blue screen technology, also known as chromakey). This was done in teams of four: one dungeoneer and three advisors. During their quests, teams would encounter actors playing characters (some benign, others malign, some non-aligned). The only one to appear in all eight series was Treguard the Dungeon Master, played by Hugo Myatt. Clue objects and magic spells were also standard features of quests.

If a team succeeded (by surviving the Dungeon's three levels and redeeming their quest object), then they were considered knights in the making; but the hazards within the Dungeon were liable to perplex, vex and scare them, and Watchers too. Hence the pun...


Knightmare merchandise included books and computer games. France and Spain have had their own versions of Knightmare. Episodes of the original series have been repeated on the Sci-Fi Channel, New York 55, the CITV Channel (Old Skool Weekend, January 2013) and Challenge, with Series 1 and 2 repeated by the latter as recently as 2014. Tim Child, creator of Knightmare, also worked on its potential successor, Knightmare VR.

Fuelled and underpinned by the website Knightmare.com, Knightmare has an enduring internet fan community, with a plethora of forums, fanfics and other websites to its credit. Notable by-products of the community include Knightmare Chat, and the RPGs: versions of Knightmare made by a group of fans, in various places, with a variety of characters. To date, seven RPGs have been written and filmed.

For more on Knightmare, please see the rest of the Lexicon.

[Earlier version: 2006-02-07 23:43:39]

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The first Knightmare book was simply entitled Knightmare. However, in light of there being six subsequent Knightmare books, all with extended titles, it's generally considered less confusing to refer to the first book by the informal subtitle that appeared on its cover, Can You Beat The Challenge?.

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Arguably the clearest way for an internet user to mark himself or herself out as a Knightmare fan is to incorporate the name of the series into his or her username. Even on the Knightmare Discussion Forum, some have chosen to do this. They include:

KnightmareFan2002: after joining the forum in November of (guess when) 2002, he adopted the even more straightforward screen name 'Knightmare Fan'. He has posted 52 times, most recently in September 2004.

knightmare4u joined in December 2005, and made 4 posts, all of them about his Knightmare DVD selling activities:

'The only reason Knightmare is up for sale is because I know people still watch it. But I refuse to sit in front of my computer burning discs for everyone for free. I pay for Sky subscription, and so can other viewers. But if you want the episodes neatly presently, and edited, then you can pay for it.'

knightmare4u's penultimate post began with the line 'Last post, ever.'

knightmaredave: Knightmare Dave has been an active presence in the online Knightmare community for many years. In addition to his participation in the KM forums and Knightmare Chat, he has been involved with the Knightmare RPG, where his acting roles have included Morgaine.

knightmare_rocks joined in September of 2004. In spite of only making 5 posts, knightmare_rocks' self-introduction was a fantastic latter-day endorsement of Knightmare's superlative power to grab a viewer from the outset:

'I'm ashamed to admit I had never HEARD of Knightmare until last night at 1.45am when I was bored and channel hopping and I came across this amazing programme on Challenge!

At first I wasn't sure what was going on, there was someone holding a magnifying glass and then this evil sorcerer type guy stuck his hand into his cauldren and I thought WTF!? What's going on? And the next thing I knew this giant hand appeared and tried to grab the contestant! It was so unexpected I got such a fright I actually jumped!

I thought WOW this programme is so cool, I can't believe it's got CHILDREN in it! Then that robot killed those girls and the skeleton on the screen collapsed! iT WAS WICKED!

And those eerie tunnels with that music is so scary! And I'm 15 believe it or not!

So I had to look it up online and found this website that I have been looking through all night, It's amazing!'

Fwj Ram Knightmare joined the forum on the last day of February 2008, and has made over 5 posts.

FaveWorstKnightmare joined the forum in October 2014. With 12 posts to date, FaveWorstKnightmare had ‘started watching in Series 3 which I believe remains the pinnacle of them all which subsequent series never quite matched’.

[Previous versions: 2008-03-10 17:18:30, 2007-12-25 02:41:14]

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