Michael Stone
I encountered a few episodes of this back in 1987. Never saw it again but never totally forgot it either. Finally discovered a DVD (somewhat amateurish and picture quality less than ideal but still viewable) while googling for something else altogether.I was delighted. There's room for a few gripes. In particular, rather too much time seemed to be spent on the hero being pursued, John Buchan style, over moors and other "wild and loonley places", making it an episode or two longer than perhaps it really needed to be; but overall it was better than many things I've watched. One of the episodes already seen had given away the Big Secret, but I found that didn't spoil my enjoyment in a major way. And it was a little hard to get really excited about the young hero, who at times seemed a trifle dull in both senses of the word. But given what his heredity is supposed to be, making him a genius or a scintillating personality could be deemed implausible.The serial might be described as "King Arthur in modern dress" or perhaps a WW2 "resistance" one, like "Secret Army" with strong Arthurian overtones. Both sides have modern weapons, the Bad Guys even using black helicopters (another sign of the time it was made), yet at one point they even manage to get a sword fight in, while their leader, played wonderfully by John Woodvine, is called Prior Mordrin (= Mordred?), and a character on the other side is named Arthur. The resisters are disproportionately Welsh, with support (mostly offstage) in the North of England, fighting a kind of Neo-Pagan "religious order" based in Winchester. These got into power some 20 years before, in a civil war between north and south. The Iron Lady is never mentioned, but it sounds as if the "North-South divide", much discussed in Her day, had got really out of hand. But the opposition is very disunited, and the hero is quickly drawn into a search for "the King", sole survivor of the Knights' massacre of the Royal Family, as an essential rallying point.(Small nitpick here. The House of Windsor is enormous, with hundreds of members, many living outside the UK, so it would be impossible for the Knights to wipe them all out. However, a distant and maybe foreign cousin might lack the appeal of a close relative of the immediate Family, so let it pass)To cut a long story short, they find him, but only after Our Boy has gone through a Concentration Camp, been subjected to a rigorous training programme, brainwashed, pursued hither and thither both by the Knights and by their enemies and generally given a hard time. In short, a classical Arthurian Quest, and it all turns out to be for a Purpose. All in all, well worth a view, and undeservedly neglected.
Tal Rotbart
I saw this series when I was a teenager and occasionally remembered it and wanted to locate DVDs of it, but had no recollection of what it was called... Recently I watched Season 2 of "Shameless" and as soon as John Woodvine appeared in it (as Neville Galagher) I recognized that he performed in the series and it gave me a vital clue. I scoured his filmography until I finally found this series. I'm glad to see that there are others that remember it, even if they are few. Hopefully I'll be able to find a copy of the series somewhere so I can watch it again.Hopefully it won't disappoint me, I watched it many years ago.
samurai_rich
This show was fantastic, I have only the vaguest memories of it now, but I remember being gripped at the time, because it was like nothing i'd ever seen before. My parents just wouldn't watch sci-fi, so i missed loads of it, but i used to watch it with my brother whenever i could. But it wasn't really sci-fi, it had this medieval quality, maybe because of all the court politics and religious overtones. I had the novelisation too. The Knights crossed swords symbol is still imprinted in my imagination and i think i'd still be scared even now if i met John Woodvine. Fantastic television, definitely worth a DVD.In fact, if today's telly people looking to counter or capitalise on Doctor Who's current success made more shows like this and less reheated dross like Primeval or Robin Hood the world would be a better place.
mandelmanden
Bought part 2 of the video yesterday in a "used videos and stuff" shop for about 1.5$... I was lured by the action packed cover to spend time and money on this piece of incredibly boring garbage... maybe as a tv-series in 10000 episodes this could work, but as a 120 min film, 240 if you bought part 1, and dread the existence of part 3, then it falls through... all the way to the bottom.