D&D featured on BBC TV - viewable online

Zander

Explorer
BBC 4 has been running a series on fantasy titled "The Worlds of Fantasy". The third episode subtitled "Through the Looking Glass" looks at fantasy literature of the last few decades and fantasy gaming. The programme features a segment on D&D including footage from the early 80s of (British) Steve Jackson playing D&D with Albi Fiore (I think) as DM. The D&D section also includes an interview with China Mieville. The D&D part is balanced with no aspersions cast on RPGs.

The rest of the episode includes interviews with Terry Pratchett, Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, Guillermo del Torro (of "Pan's Labyrinth" fame) and Philip Pullman among others.

The episode is viewable online for the next few days here.
On that page, click on the "Click to Play" triangle in the middle of Death's face.

The D&D part starts 21 minutes in if you don't want to watch the whole thing.

What do you think of the D&D segment or the whole programme?
 

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I watched this last night.

I was fascinated by the silent & nervous looking female player. Very 70's! Those clothes, that hair - was I ever like that? (No! - Thanks to punk rock I was a torn jeans & motorbike jacket guy.) But, as you say, broadcast without any derogatory comments.

I also wondered when the Pratchet interview took place. AFAIK his mental health is not seriously suffering yet, but I was rather surprised that no mention was made of his illness.

All three programmes in the series have been well worth watching. Alan Garner and Philip Pullman were very good (I thought) in the first (childrens fantasy fiction) documentary. It made me want to go and re-read the Weirdstone of Brisangamen. Pullman certainly pulls no punches in his definitions of fantasy fiction.
 

Pierson_Lowgal said:
Only viewable in UK.
Even online? Really? I didn't know that. Sorry! :eek:

Isn't there some way round that (that doesn't involve travel to the UK!), i.e. some way of fooling the BBC site into thinking you're in the UK?
 

Watching it now - D&D segment is fine, but it's ridiculously over the top on the Terry Pratchett worship. They should have made separate a show about Pratchett if that's what they wanted.
 

Zander said:
Even online? Really? I didn't know that. Sorry! :eek:

Isn't there some way round that (that doesn't involve travel to the UK!), i.e. some way of fooling the BBC site into thinking you're in the UK?

Even proxy sites don't work. The BBC is up to the times on internets security.

-TRRW
 


GrumpyOldMan said:
I also wondered when the Pratchet interview took place. AFAIK his mental health is not seriously suffering yet, but I was rather surprised that no mention was made of his illness.

He was on Radio 2 yesterday afternoon talking about it. I guess the interview was either taped before he knew, or the editors didn't want his Alzheimer's to be an issue in the program.
 

I watched it, and its not bad but theres far too much put forward for Discworld. Theres more to fantasy than that. While I accept that they were looking more at literary fantasy, roleplaying games should have got a better segment and not one that drew on an interview from the 70s!
 

Thanks a lot for the link. I've been watching the series and enjoyed it very much, especially the Mervyn Peake section, but I'd missed the first part of episode 3.
 

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