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Post by Always watah! on Jun 21, 2020 15:51:28 GMT
I got into watching Catweazle after they started showing it on Talking Pictures TV (gotta love that channel  ), the advent of which happened to coincide with the relaunched cult TV magazine Infinity doing a most illuminating article on it. (I'm not sure if they do back issues, but for anyone that's interested, it was featured in Issue 24.) What I found most interesting about it though, after having gained a better understanding of how the production went, was a small section towards the end of the article indicating that the possibility of making a third series was considered by several people, including Richard and Geoffrey, and that it would have seen Catweazle reunited with Carrot at Hexwood following his flight from the Collingford estate. I was quite interested to hear more about this idea, but I couldn't find much more out about it online (the only place I could find it was a brief line in the Wikipedia article that it was cancelled while still in the drafting phase). I was wondering, does anyone know anything else relating to it, or if there any more details about it ever came out? Also, does anyone know if Robin Davies was ever made aware of the plans? |
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Post by Carol Barnes on Jun 25, 2020 13:13:07 GMT
Richard was keen to do a third series whereby the balloon fly over Castle Saburac and he landed back at the farm, but the farm was deserted. There was a suggestion that he might have a female companion. I suppose once Carrot had realised the truth, then the whole concept would not be the same. Geoffrey was not so keen purely because he thought that by this time Catweazle would know all about the modern world etc. BUT I have or had every faith in Richard to produce new adventures that would alter those fears. There is no way he would have turned it down I am sure if it was commissioned. Alas the people at ITV left and new people came in (according to Richard) and they had the "new broom sweep clean" attitude and therefore wanted new things. So sadly it did not happen. I don't know if he actually had written any chapters, but he did have more ideas should he need them.
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ca75
Touchwood's Minder
Posts: 6
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Post by ca75 on Jul 8, 2020 17:25:34 GMT
Unable to see topics of individual episodes ? Not to worry but point being just watched the final one of Series 2 a half hour ago on Talking Pictures. I knew it was the last episode made before viewing but had not seen it up until now. A nice touch at the end as they abandoned the traditional music for the continuation one of the Hot Air Balloon scenery. It felt poignant at the end and hard not to be touched a little, managed to see every episode of Series 2 but only half of the first one including (missing) first episode broadcast. No doubt they will repeat it and imagine available on Youtube but you can't beat the experience of watching live on a retro channel for true nostalgia.
As the episode today neared it's climax was expecting Catweazle to find a way back to his own time and finally a return to the 11th Century but the balloon trip was a bit ambiguous. Where was he heading to, how would he return to Farthing Corner or ever meet up with Cedric again if drifted too far away. Yes there's a certain explanation in the above post from Carol but how many would be aware of it such as causal viewers. A new civilisation and people would have been interesting indeed although perhaps leaving the character more puzzled than ever. The series ended on a strange note and was hoping during the half hour this afternoon it could run further but there's only a certain amount of time to air the shows and often a lot to fit in.
Summing up I don't regret tuning in each day to see what happened, it provided a sort of escapism to a time now forgotten, a sort of days of innocence far removed from the madness and hostilities of present time. Would I watch it all again if and when they view once more ? The first series definitely if able and suppose it applies to the second run also. Think it requires a second viewing to take everything in and reassemble what occurred. I'm pleased I had the opportunity to gain a good understanding of the series and character now and participated in most of the shows they made and presented. A hidden gem maybe in the realms of television, it provided some moments of genuine laughs and interest.
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Post by ChasWeazle on Jul 8, 2020 18:04:50 GMT
To ca75: You can always purchase the 5 disc DVD which has both Series 1 and 2 with many extras included, from.... (click the link below) 👇 www.catweazlefanclub.co.uk/shop |
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Post by Carol Barnes on Jul 10, 2020 20:11:37 GMT
Thanks Chas
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Post by ChasWeazle on Jul 11, 2020 12:34:34 GMT
Most welcome, Carol. Regarding merchandise... When do you anticipate the 3 location DVDs to be back on sale? Cheers. |
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Post by Carol Barnes on Jul 21, 2020 1:03:46 GMT
Looking into it now Chas
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Post by ChasWeazle on Jul 22, 2020 15:25:15 GMT
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Post by londonwizard on Dec 18, 2021 19:53:59 GMT
It's very disappointing to read about the lack of Catweazle showings outside London. I remember that Look-In magazine promoted it a lot. It was shown in various other countries. I've read that it was shown a lot in Germany and the Netherlands, including fairly recently. I think that bearing all this in mind, there should have been a feature film made by compiling various episodes of Catweazle. These could have been shown in cinemas and/or on TV. An explanation of this technique with some examples given is on... catacombs.space1999.net/main/pguide/up013.html I think that this would have created more demand for Catweazle, leading to a third series. Is there any fan fiction of Catweazle anywhere, I wonder? Are there any novels that continued from where the series left off? Eventually what happened was that there was an attempt to make a film in 2007-2011 by a joint British-German team with the approval of Richard Carpenter, but obviously this didn't lead to anything. Finally, in 2021 a German feature film version of Catweazle has been released. This version of Catweazle is from the year 1020AD and arrives in Germany in 2020 or 2021, so I think he was in the Holy Roman Empire in 1020. He had been imprisoned in a Castle, because it wasn't only the Normans who were against magic! Of course, it won't be released in the UK, because no German films are ever released in the UK. It is in German, but some people in the UK do speak German. A lot of German TV became available in the UK ever since satellite TV started. I don't know how many people have watched it though. I do know that in a TV channel ratings survey there was a time when German TV channel SAT.1 was getting higher UK viewing figures than MTV UK! As for me, I watched German TV to continue with my German language studies, then this upgraded my knowledge to totally fluent or native speaker level. As for TV channels in other languages, they weren't available because of encryption and not allowing subscriptions from the UK, or they were on different satellite positions. |
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Post by Alan Hayes on Dec 19, 2021 9:29:32 GMT
Re. the idea of a Catweazle feature film being compiled for episodes, this would likely only have worked for television showings as cinema compilations of this type were (as far as I can tell) always from 35mm film series (the Anderson shows, The Avengers, The Saint, Danger Man, etc - all 35mm). 16mm looked a bit grotty blown up to full size on cinema screens and quite likely such a Catweazle compilation would have been rejected on technical grounds. Have to be honest, it's a real shame the series wasn't shot on 35mm. It could look stunning on Blu-ray if so (many 35mm series of its era do).
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Post by southernspirits on Jan 24, 2024 8:56:30 GMT
It would have been an extremely difficult proposition, but I don't doubt Richard's capacity to breathe further life into the formula, but the extra pathos with Catweazle ending up in circa 1970 again would been pretty serious and cast more than a little pall over the story, unless.....
I think it could have worked if there as a bridging story where Catweazle did get home and perhaps lived there for a while before via some convoluted circumstance, fell back to Hexwood, but the bridging story reset our outstanding and allowed Catweazle to see the reversal has at least, somewhat welcome.
Richard's creativity and versatility was definitely not to be underestimated!
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), the advent of which happened to coincide with the relaunched cult TV magazine Infinity doing a most illuminating article on it. (I'm not sure if they do back issues, but for anyone that's interested, it was featured in Issue 24.)
