Well, I wanted it and it finally showed up on our shores. Kröd Mändoon And The Flaming Sword Of Fire debuted last night on BBC2 with an hour-long (two-episode) special; and it wasn't half bad.It's not going to win any awards, but as the first full-on fantasy comedy series that I can think of it does a pretty good job of presenting a world that should be familiar to most Dungeons & Dragons players.
Like the current iteration of Robin Hood on BBC1, but more so, if viewed as dramatised LARP or based on a script of an actual role-playing game, you can kinda see where they're coming from with the anachronisms and cheap sex gags.
I wouldn't have minded if the writer and creator Peter Knight had sacrificed some of the easy smut and obvious innuendo for a bit more genuine witty banter, irony and more subtle material, but it was still way funnier than a lot of comedy shows that run and run and run, so there's hope for it to get another season.
As well as an outstanding example of party dynamics at work, Kröd Mändoon And The Flaming Sword of Fire scores massive brownie points with me for the thought and depth Peter Knight (no relation by the way) has clearly put into the creation of the world his characters exist in.
I'm also sure more villains in campaigns around the globe will start behaving like the brilliant Chancellor Dongalor (Matt Lucas), who pretty much steals the show with the aid of his excellent sidekick Barnabus (Alex MacQueen). These two certainly get the lion's share of the best lines.
Comedy has always proved a great source of material for my games; a long(ish) running campaign I ran during my last year or so at school (using The Fantasy Trip system) and then revived again in early 1988, as a heavily houseruled Dungeons & Dragons game, drew in large part from the Radio 4 comedy series Horde Of The Things - which is finally being released on CD later this year.
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy has also served as a major inspiration in many games. At prep school my friend Tom ran one of my characters through a dungeon based on the plot of the first season of the radio show; "leaves" became a viable currency for a while in our campaigns, we had game statistics for the effects of a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and I believe I created a dungeon based on the second season, complete with statues of Arthur Dent, giant birds, hobbling soldiers in ill-fitting shoes etc, but I don't remember actually running it.
As for poor Kröd, with most of the decent geeky shows ending - or coming to an end - around this time of the year, it'll be one of my few chances for a fix of new genre goodness (at least for the next four episodes) - as well as source of ideas for my own campaign.
I happen to know Nick and Clare of The Tuesday Knights were going to watch to see if Clare could get any ideas for her character, Sister FitzRovia, Priestess Of The Love Goddess Veneria, from India de Beaufort's character Aneka! Looking forward to seeing how that works out...
* As an aside, I find it odd that some people refer to Kröd Mändoon And The Flaming Sword of Fire as a sitcom.
The other day Nick was talking about "that fantasy sitcom" and I didn't know what he meant. I see Kröd more as an "action comedy" or some such nebulous descriptor.
The Big Bang Theory and Cheers are sitcoms, I' would have bracketed Kröd with light-hearted action pieces like Chuck or Xena, Warrior Princess... but what do I know? I suppose it is a sitcom in the same sense that Red Dwarf is a sitcom.
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I have liked Matt Lucas since Little Britain and he has a way of just making evil funny...and long suffering Barnabas reminds me of Kip on Futerama. The straight man always makes the comedian. I enjoy Krod and admire it for what it is trying to be. Lets hope its gets the chance to develop.
And this is where we disagree. :)
I couldn't stand this thing, and finally gave up when they introduced the Gay Guy Who Was Funny Because He Was Gay. Utterly devoid of wit or cleverness of any sort, this adolescent trash wasn't up to the standards of The Legend of Dick and Dom let alone Hitchhiker's or, grud forbid, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Poor, poor, poor.
I agree with kelvingreen. :)
I watched the first ten minutes or so and thought it was rubbish. So I switched off and watched a recorded episode of Primeval instead.
The last thing fantasy TV needed was a crude, infantile, smutty show like this.
Or were you being sarcastic in your review?
"Or were you being sarcastic in your review?"
Oh dear, there must be something about my written tone as with my spoken one that people tend to think I'm being sarcastic when I'm being serious ;-)
Maybe I'm being overgenerous with Krod as I wanted to like it.
Yes, some of the humour is base, not that clever and rather obvious (e.g. Bruce, the stereotypical homosexual), but I applaud the fact that it's not set-up to ridicule the fantasy genre, but to play with it and draw laughs from its tropes and archetypes.
And the double-act of Dongalor and Barnabus is very funny! The show would certainly be less enjoyable without them.
I must say I thought it was pretty poor!
The sexual humour was basically too over the top! Almost every scene was dominated by some sexual gags. Bare in mind, one of my favourite comedians was Frankie Howard, so I am not averse to that type of humour, but it totally dominated the show.
I have never been a fan of Little Britain, but occasionally Matt Lucas is quite funny, unfortunately his lines all seemed really forced in this one!
I will continue watching it, in the hope that it improves, but generally I was very disappointed.
Most of the humor in Krod is indeed tasteless, crass, and rife with sexual gags. (I was going to say "innuendo," but none of it is that subtle.)
But at least it's completely unapologetic about it.
It's not clever comedy by a long shot, but it never pretends to be something wittier than it is. Given all the pretentious (and cynical) programming we get here in the States, I'd rather watch something as openly low-brow as Krod than most of our other modern so-called comedies.
If you keep your expectations from getting too high, and just sit back and enjoy the ride, you may eventually find that the show will grow on you.
Just to clarify - I didn't think you were being sarcastic. Your review sounded genuine. I was just hoping it was all a joke. :)
I applaud the fact that it's not set-up to ridicule the fantasy genre
And yet, I got the opposite impression. To me, it seemed like it was trying to take the mickey out of fantasy fiction (and not doing a good job of it either).
It reminds me of my worse experiences of RPGing where the game is treated as some silly excuse to get together and make up poor jokes.
I liked the show OK. It wasn't the best, but heck, what fantasy TV show is? It's in the same satire vein as Scary Movie/Epic Movie/etc and is certainly better than most of that crap.
And it had its moments. The Eye of Gulga Grimnar is worth stealing. And by the end I was really liking the bad guy's use of "Daggers!" as an expletive.
you may eventually find that the show will grow on you
As long as they continue with trash like suggesting that homosexuality is self-evidently hilarious, I doubt it.
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