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Forgotten brit-fi FTW!

  • Jul. 12th, 2008 at 8:45 PM
pontisbright: (5woo_snowgrouse)
KNIGHTS OF GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

Photobucket

Why yes, that is BLAKE AND TWO. HANGING OUT. IN WALES. MY CAPSLOCK IS ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED.  Bonus Trout in comments for the unbelievers!

How the hell did I never see this at the time? 1987, ITV, crazypants Nazis from 'Anglia' in black helicopters trying to defeat the citizens of 'the north' while being harassed by Welsh rebels. (CASTING GARETH THOMAS AS A WELSH GUNRUNNING REBEL? CRIVENS!) There are 13 episodes and I've only seen one, but we've already had:
  • awesome credits with a burning Union flag and some marching jackboots
  • Julian Fellowes (with hair!)
  • a youthful Welsh hero called Gervase, who is now pretending to be called Llewellyn Ap Griffiths to prove how completely and entirely Welsh and heroic he is
  • a quarry
  • the only kid in the entire story getting killed off, despite this being kids' telly
  • Paul 'The Castellan' Jerrico
  • Nigel 'old bloke in loads of things including Time-Flight' Stock
  • the immortal line 'You will go to Caernarfon when I tell you and not before!'
  • BLAKE AND THE TROUT OMG
They're being v careful not to make it into anti-English nationalist propaganda, though.  Apart from the big where a chapel full of Welsh rebels who've been commanded by the Knights of God to bow before the nation of Anglia all stand up and sing 'Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau' instead, before being herded into trucks to take them to the 're-education' camps.  I've simply no idea what they were getting at there.

Has anyone else seen this wondrous thing?  I'd never even heard of it till kind friend sent me a dodgy tv rip. I foresee many happy hours of not going to Caernarfon in my future.
  • Mood: amused

Comments

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[identity profile] pontisbright.livejournal.com wrote:
Jul. 12th, 2008 09:59 pm (UTC)
I figured if anyone would have, it would be you. :) No Michael Sheard so far, but I shouldn't be at all surprised. I'm so thoroughly entertained that this even got made, let alone as teatime kiddie fare. It passed me by completely at the time,, anyway.

The TV rip is horrible, but I suspect a dvd's fairly unlikely: stuff made by no-longer-existing bits of ITV and written by bloke who never did anything else = tragically never to see light of day. Yay for the internets!
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[identity profile] snowgrouse.livejournal.com wrote:
Jul. 12th, 2008 11:52 pm (UTC)
I saw it only because I'd volunteered to transfer some Gareth stuff from tape onto DVD a few years ago as a favour to a few B7 fans. The tapes were crappy and whoever had recorded them, had snipped the end credits off, which always pisses me off enormously. But OMFG, so much win there.

And you're right--back in those days, they still did some challenging, hardcore stuff and expected kids/young adults to have brains. After the mid-eighties, dark and intense stuff like that has almost completely disappeared off the telly. Everything has to be nice and fluffy and not too scary and blah. Hooray for archive telly! And yay for internets indeed.
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[identity profile] pontisbright.livejournal.com wrote:
Jul. 13th, 2008 10:43 am (UTC)
No idea where friend found the torrent, but these have the end credits too, yay. Quality horrible on the first ep but better from there, as always seems to happen.

80s kids telly was quite loony, yes. I watched Survival a while back and was really struck by how self-consciously political it was, in a manner you'd never even try now. It was quite craply self-consciously political, obviously, but props for effort. :)
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