King Arthur and the Knights of Justice S1E1: “Opening Kick-Off”

This review was commissioned by @krinsbez. Obviously. There's a pretty clear pattern at this point.


Another early nineties American cartoon, and for once this is one that I *did* actually see when I was in its target demographic. Not that often. My parents were pretty restrictive when it came to what non-educational programs my siblings and I were allowed to watch on TV. But I caught a few episodes here and there, and I remember liking what I saw. We'll see if it holds up, I guess.

The pitch, from what I recall, is that a team of American football players have been isekai'd back in time and need to fill in for King Arthur and the knights of the round table. Which makes about as much sense as most cartoons of its time and place, I guess? Actually, no, it makes significantly less sense than a lot of them. Regardless, it might be decent despite the weirdness. Notably, this one was produced with a significant overlap of oversight from Marvel Studios, long before the latter's modern heyday, and apparently it got some Marvel comic tie-ins as well as the obligatory Mattel action figures. So, that's an interesting bit of trivia.

I never happened to see the pilot episode as a kid, so this will be mostly new material for me.


The intro is cool. Catchy song, diverse action, and an unusually colorful look. Even for an early nineties cartoon, it's so bright and cheerful looking, regardless of the lethal-looking violence going on. I feel like that goes a long way toward capturing the feel of European chivalry, with its ostentatious personal decorations and heraldry. And also, incidentally, the feel of American football with its bright team uniforms and big emblazoned numbers against green turf.

On a more plot-revealing note, this OP starts with Merlin looking into his crystal ball and predicting that a new king will come from the future to save the Britain of the present before the music kicks in and we see the football players go from astroturf to greensward and sports padding to mailcoats. They're also seen using trick weapons that are at least as out-of-place looking in sixth century Britain as the characters are. I remembered those from seeing this on TV...there's the extendo-mace, and I think one guy had a rocket-powered battering ram or something? Anyway, it's a pretty good intro. Definitely above average for its time and place.

The intro gives way to a voiceover by Merlin. The Camelot he knew is no more, he says. The king has fallen, and now the island is plagued by rapacious warlords. The visuals that accompany this involve a golden helmet laying empty on the ground, and then a group of "warlord" knights who look like a medieval version of COBRA riding over it.

I like that even the obvious bad guys have some bright coloration like golden yellow on their armor and barding. Gives a lot more character to their otherwise generic "evil knight" look, and perhaps indirectly humanizes them a bit. They want to look good as well as intimidating, which...well, that was certainly the paradigm for British knights in the centuries following this era, and the King Arthur stories have always been given anachronistic medieval aesthetics starting in the actual medieval era, so this tracks.

There's also a brief glimpse of some kind of wheeled vehicle that looks a lot more like a modern armored car than a medieval war wagon though, so I'm not sure what to say about that.

The army, led by a stern looking man with a snake motif to his armor, comes upon a grand castle standing above a sea cliff. Camelot, maybe? Camelot is usually described as being on an island in a lake, but that's just "usually," not "always." Sir Snek gives the order to attack, and his army charges toward the castle.

...five seconds later, he shouts "Destroy Camelot!" so that answers my question I guess.

They get within shooting distance of the castle walls, and then start firing...um...well, there are arrows shot from bows, arrows shot from weird vehicle-mounted contraptions, braces of throwing-axes launched by mechanical saddlebags...it's all very mechanically complex and action-figure-y. Not very effective, though. I was expecting the projectiles to explode or deploy spinning drill bits or something to tear into Camelot's walls, but nope. They just bounce off the stone walls like normal arrows and blades. Why are they shooting what amounts to normal arrows and throwing axes at a stone wall?

After a moment, Merlin gets up onto the battlements and casts some force field spell to repel the arrows. Despite them already not doing jack shit to a castle, because that's not what arrows are for, but I guess one can't be too careful.

The army halts its advance and its ammo-wasting when they see the force field go up. Sir Snek regards the magical defenses appraisingly while his second in command, Sir Axehead, rides up beside him to ask for new orders.

Sir Axehead's voice sounds like the dorky peasants from Warcraft 2-3, lol.

And, even bigger lol, he names Sir Snek as...Lord Viper. Oh my god I was seriously that close? THAT close? Damn, almost had it in one swing this time!

Lord Viper replies that Merlin's response here was anticipated, and indeed counted on. His plan to capture Guinevere depends on this, in fact. I guess he kept this information on a need-to-know basis, which...well, legit! With Arthur already neutralized, he explains, capturing the queen will basically destroy the people's perception of a centralized authority, and conquering the rest of Britain will be much easier going forward. Okay, yeah, that strategy is solid, regardless of whether or not the tactics used in its service turn out to be.

There's a bit of dissonance going on here between Lord Viper's animators and his voice actor, though. The VA is voicing him like a cackling, gleeful villain, but his expressions are much more of the grim, humorless killer archetype. I guess he just has a bad case of bitchface.

Some overcomplicated catapults that look like robotic dragons on wheels are brought to bear now. Finally, some actual siege weapons! The boulders they cast don't do any better of a job at penetrating Merlin's magic shielding, but still, at least they look like they might have done something if they DID hit the actual walls. Lord Viper also orders the archers to keep shooting, though, which...well, either he's got some brilliant plan in mind, or he's just an idiot.

Cut to Merlin, still maintaining the force shield around the castle. It looks like his raised arms might be starting to buckle and shake in response to the catapult fire. Oh, okay, maybe this spell has a limit to how much force it can absorb. In that case, shooting normal arrows at it to help chip away at Merlin's mana or whatever might actually be an effective strategy, though that doesn't explain why they were doing it before he raised the shield. Anyway, while Merlin struggles to keep the force field up, we jump over to Queen Guinevere and...um...some other lady? A handmaid or something, maybe?...worrying at each other about this enemy attack, and how desperate they are for Arthur and his forces to return and save the day.

Is Merlin the only one defending the castle right now? If so, he probably should have gone for a different tactic. The tough-but-ultimately-destructible shield spell is a great support power, but pretty much useless in a situation like this one. Unless he also thinks Arthur and Co are about to make it back home himself and that he just needs to stall the attackers for a bit.

Also, while I like Gwen's character design, her VA is a cut below the others we've heard before. Viper, Axe, and Merlin were all pleasantly over the top, even if there was some visual dissonance in Viper's case. Gwen just sounds like she's reading her lines. The other woman she's talking to is even worse.

Their conversation is cut short by the arrival of an enemy knight with biomechanoid wings flapping from the back of his armor. He swoops down from the sky behind the forcefield (oh, okay, it looks like Merlin can only cover one side of the castle at a time with that thing) and grabs Gwen, informing her that she'll be brought to Castle Morgana now. Ahhh, so this is Mordred's army then. Or...actually, I think I remember the main villain of this show being female, so maybe it's one of the more villainous interpretation's of Morgan Le Fey herself who's in command. Anyway, Lord Viper and his posse, including his wingman here, are working for someone connected to that side of the Arthurian mythos.

Merlin sees Wingman start to fly away with Gwen in hand, and drops his defensive spell to try and cast something more attack-y, but Wingman nimbly body-slams the wizard as he flies back over the battlements, knocking Merlin down and seemingly breaking his concentration or depleting his energy.

Wingman's voice sounds a lot like Riff-Raff from Rocky Horror. Not that I can judge the creators for this, since I did pretty much the exact same thing for a villain in the last D&D campaign I ran.

Wingman, now named as Blackwing, wastes no time in flying back to his own forces and placing Gwen before Lord Viper. "Blackwing," huh? Okay, I'm not going to be salty about the near-miss this time, because his wings are a vivid blue color. How the hell was I supposed to guess the wrong colored wing for his name? Gwen insists that they'll all be sorry when Arthur gets back, and Lord Viper - who seems pretty confident that Arthur is dead or imprisoned or something - understandably laughs her off.

Then, he orders his army to pull back and return home. They got what they came here for. Merlin watches, helplessly, his magic expended, from the castle walls as the enemy leaves with Guinevere in captivity.

Presumably, with the last of the Pendragon dynasty who aren't Mordred in hand, there's not much reason for them to bother with the castle itself. Or at least, not until they've dealt with more pressing sources of opposition. Regardless of whether or not Merlin is the only one actively defending it at this point.

In other words, they used their intel about Merlin's specific abilities to plan around them, executed a successful feint using the resources and abilities at their own disposal, and then left as soon as they achieved their objective, all without losing a single man. All it costed them was some arrows and axe-launcher magazines.

This is our introduction to both the bad guys, and to the story as a whole, and HOT DAMN has the show done a good job! These guys are presented as a genuine threat right out the door, so it doesn't require any leap of logic to explain why they've been winning so far. Better still, it isn't just brute force that's allowed them to win; they're actually smart as well! Even the silly arrow barrage at the beginning was seemingly just to bait Merlin into raising the shields somewhere where they wouldn't actually get in Blackwing's way.

Compared to Boss Skullface or whatever the bad guy in Mighty Max was called, these are some amazingly competent antagonists.

Merlin watches their retreat, face sorrowful, as he admits to himself that his magic is weakening by the day. Then, he descends to the empty and abandoned Round Table, while narrating to no one in particular about how Morgana lured Arthur and his knights into the "cave of terror," leaving her warlord cronies to tear Britain apart at their capricious whims. And now, his magic is failing him, and Gwen has been lost from right under his nose.

Suddenly, the round table starts glowing.

A watery blue texture comes over it, and then a mass of holographic ripples rise up and turn into that frustratingly vague enchantress lady from He-Man.

I'm guessing that she's supposed to be some version of the Lady in the Lake, going by the water motif. But it's pretty obvious what their visual basis was.

Lake oracle tells Merlin that there are twelve heroic souls from the far future who are destined to come back in time and help him stop Viper and Morgana. That's an awfully big main cast, for this kind of show. I'm guessing it'll just be a few of the team members who form the central protagonists. She then tells Merlin that it falls upon him to call upon these nascent heroes so they can rise to the occasion, and vanishes. Cryptic, useless hints, just like in He-Man. Merlin vows that, by the vagueness of Grayskull, he will find the men she spoke of, and then...turns himself into a stormcloud and shoots off into the heavens.

-_-

Why does Merlin need anyone else's help to deal with some guys with axe-launchers and wing-packs, again?

Jump 1,500 years forward and 5,000 miles west, to an American football team called the Knights having their half-time huddle.

The opposition is in the lead, but Knights quarterback Arthur (of course) has been studying their tactics and thinks he has some countermeasures that'll let his team turn the tide. He seems to have a good grasp of tactical deception and maneuvers, which is a good character trait to establish. One of his teammates, Darren, is skeptical of the new plan, but Arthur manages to get him aboard with some confident assurances and a rogueish wink as he talks about using the opponents' expectations against them. So, he's also good at leadership, which is also important to establish. His presumable opponent Lord Viper has just been shown to be skilled at both these things, so establishing that Arthur can play his own game and have a good chance of winning is important.

A lot of shows from this era would blow the protagonist's introduction on establishing him as "cool" or "radical," or just on building hero cred by having him do something blandly altruistic. I think that this approach - showing the problem that needs solving, and then immediately letting us see Arthur's knack for solving that type of problem - is a much better one.

The game resumes, and...oh ffs, his name is actually Arthur King. This is me grimacing. Well...the game resumes, and Arthur's new tactics pay off, securing a narrow win for the Knights. This scene is too abbreviated to show WHAT his new plan was or why it was so effective against the opponents' strategy, which would normally annoy me, but given the limited runtime and the amount of work this pilot episode seems to have cut out for it I can understand why they didn't show more. Hopefully we'll get to actually see him being smart and tactical soon enough.

After the game, the Knights are driving their minibus on to their next destination, New York City. The celebratory air is being gradually worn down by the sudden rainstorm and fog that render the road ahead dangerous.

Arthur undermines his own tactician cred a little here by encouraging the driver, Lug, to take a more dangerous shortcut despite the slippery road and poor visibility. Why? Um...because they're really excited to reach New York. Because they want to play their next game and pick up chicks and go to museums and stuff.

No, literally, those three specific things are all named by different team members.

They drive along the cliff, and the storm starts...pressing in on them from above. Merlin, are you just going to abduct these people? Then some weird lights starts flashing around the front of the vehicle, they begin hydroplaning, and then they go over the cliff. And hit every tree on the way down the ravine, with every impact producing an explosion of orange light that sends the bus spinning away and accelerating downward.

The cartoony magical stuff outside the bus and the so-so-at-best voice acting of most of the Knights softens this somewhat. But still. This scene goes on quite a long time, and they're all screaming in abject terror as they're thrown around the inside of the crashing bus, and it's...honestly kind of disturbing.

Like, seriously. If I were watching this as a kid, I...well, I'd either be too dumb to be disturbed by this, or I'd be fucking traumatized. It's juuuust realistic enough of a car accident scene to be uncomfortable to watch, and it goes on for several minutes.

Finally, they hit a ruined castle that doesn't look like it belongs on their continent, and a weird scifi-surrealist tunnel opens up in it and sucks them inside. The interior is like a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Being John Malkovich.

Finally, they hit a stone(?) wall at the end of the tunnel, the bus disintegrates in a blast of golden light, and its occupants are flung through a glowy cartoon vortex until they find themselves laying on the floor around the Round Table, their uniforms having transformed into foppish light armor and tunics and stuff.

They pick themselves up, in a really dazed, underacted way. Understatedness in scenes that should call for emotion really seems to be a flaw of these 80's-90's boys' cartoons. It's not quiiiite as bad as the Street Sharks being practically nonchalant at their own transformation, but it's close.

And, well. Street Sharks was something special even for its time and place, so.

They start blaming each other, or (in Arthur's case, which wins him back a few points) accepting blame themselves for what happened. Not NEARLY enough time spent trying to make sense of their surroundings, in any case.

Finally, Merlin shows himself. He explains that they're in what they'd probably call the early Middle Ages, in Camelot, and that he hopes their journey wasn't too traumatic.

Oh wow is Merlin a fucking prick. True, some versions of him already were long before this show was made. Depending on the writer or storyteller, Merlin could be a benevolent old wizard as he's most often depicted nowadays, or a scheming malefactor who did everything he did just to cause chaos and only ever accomplished good by accident. This show seems to be trying to have it both ways. He DID cause everything that just happened to them, right?

Some of them are skeptical. Others, indignant. But again, all really understatedly and nonchalantly so. Merlin assures them that he is their friend. Uh huh. He also tells them that if they don't stop Morgana and Viper, the timeline will be altered, and the future they call home might never come to pass. Erm...maybe? It sounds plausible, but I don't know how much to trust this guy. He then, after seemingly having brought them here under his own power, tells them that only by aiding him in the defeat of Lord Viper and the freeing of the true Arthurian knights from that magic cave Morgana lured them into can they find the "time keys" that will allow them to return home.

If "time keys" are necessary for time travel, then Merlin must have mysteriously lost them somehow in the last few seconds.

They're still all some combination of skeptical, confused, or just plain overwhelmed. Of the lot, Arthur seems to be adapting the most quickly, but still not fast enough. So, Merlin tells them that they need to end the siege of Camelot first and foremost before tackling any of the more complicated details.

Oh, I guess Lord Viper did leave most of his forces to continue the siege, then. It looked like he was withdrawing his whole army after he captured Guinevere, but no, I guess that was just him and a few bodyguards escorting her back to Castle Morgana. I'm kind of not sure why they had Blackwing capture her and leave the castle again, instead of having him shiv Merlin in the back and then open the gates for the army, but oh well. Merlin also tells them that Viper has captured the "fairest of the fair" and shows them a hologram of Gwen.

Which they all whistle and leer at.

Erm...

Merlin then tells Arthur that Gwen is his queen, at least until her real husband returns.

ERM...

Merlin insists that Guinevere is "everything good and pure in the world," and doesn't react at all to the whistling and leering. And, after that, the Knights are all convinced.

-____-

Merlin tells them that the round table that they're all sitting around is his own creation, and will give them both the equipment and the skills and knowledge they need to take on the role of the true knights. O...kay, seems like he could have had literally anyone do this, then. Maybe it only reacts to twelve people who happen to bare specific resemblances to the originals or something. So, Arthur King then announces that he's taking the role of King Arthur, and places his fist on the table. In a single shared motion, the other eleven then put their own fists down, and chant a perfectly synchronized vow to defend tha land and fight evil as the Knights of Justice.

Merlin never told them to do this, or gave them the words they're supposed to chant. Does using the table also grant you the knowledge of how to use the table? Retroactively? :/

There's an extended magical girl transformation where they all get flashy looking armor, trick weapons, and a bizarre combination of mounts and wheeled vehicles similar to the enemy ones. Out they ride, with the warlord forces being shocked and alarmed to see the knights of the round table in their familiar armor and accessories coming forth.

Still, the warlords, led by some rando who Viper left in charge, make a bold counterattack. Arthur sees their formation, makes some tactical calculations, and...they fight them and win.

Really, that's it. It's a shorter scene than the bus crash sequence. We don't see what Arthur's plan was, or how it exploits the enemy formation, or how and if it uses twentieth century sensibilities to its advantage. Once again, his strategic cunning is told, not shown.

Blackwing is still present, but he...makes one aerial lunge from horseback toward one of the good guys, gets knocked over, and then immediately flees.

At least the rocket powered battering ram that I remembered gets used. That was cool I guess.

The day is saved. The Knights cheer and look forward to saving Gwen and getting home or whatever. Pan up to Camelot.

Then end episode.


You can just FEEL the moment where the creators were informed they wouldn't be getting a two-part pilot after all.

I don't know that that's what happened, but I'd be very, very surprised if it wasn't. The episode took its time, practiced good show-don't-tell principles (aside from Merlin's heavyhanded exposition), and spaced things out for the purposes of atmosphere and personality. Until the Knights arrived in Camelot. Then everything raced by with such compression and haste that you can barely even follow what's going on, with no one having time to shine, no interesting ideas being explored, and a copout of a final fight that fails to serve as a climax or payoff.

Even the creepy shit with Guinevere felt like it was at least partly caused by compression. Not entirely, and even by nineties casual sexism standards (and also, for different reasons, by Arthurian ethical standards; coveting another man's wife was kind of a really big no-no in the King Arthur stories) that was a real WTF, but still, I think it was made worse by the writers having to communicate everything super fast and limiting the Knights to three second reactions.

The absolute disappointment of a "fight" with Blackwing, who had earlier gotten a fairly extended sequence showing him to be a competent and dangerous opponent, is probably even more telling. We saw him for three seconds in the battle. Three seconds that consisted of him almost literally bouncing off one of the bigger good guys and then fleeing.

The animation and voice acting are very uneven. Worse than, eg, Captain Simian, but still better than Street Sharks. I'd put it around Mighty Max levels of general production values. Average or slightly above average for its time, I suppose.

But, I don't think I can judge the show based on this pilot, because it's glaringly obvious that something went wrong with the production of the pilot specifically. I'd have to watch at least one more before deciding that it does or doesn't hold up to my childhood memories.