John Woodvine (the doctor out of American Werewolf) is great as the Cromwellian dictator of a dystopian future Britain. Julian Fellowes (yes, that Julian Fellowes, writer of Downton) is excellent as his scheming second-in-command, one of the snidiest connivers in TV history. He manipulates, sneers, looks great in kinky leather, and does action-adventure things I won't spoiler but which will make me look at him in a new light the next time I see him in a chintzy sitting-room talking about 1920s country houses. Gareth Thomas and Patrick Troughton are resistance leaders. For a kids' show and for its era it was ambitious in scope and production values and presumably budget (the look is medieval knights with motorbikes, helicopters, computers and machine-guns). I never saw it as a kid, which is a shame as I would have thought it the greatest thing ever, but even as a grown-up I had fun. It meanders at times, after a brisk opening getting mired down in certain sub-plots for slightly too long, but it all builds to a climax of jaw-dropping mayhem. Points of interest include that despite his scariness the dictator Prior Mordrin isn't a 2-dimensional villain but believes he's doing the best for the country; and that despite their name and crusader-monk aesthetic his organisation the Knights of God are pretty frankly Nietzschean and contemptuous of real religion.

I saw this series when I was a teenager and occasionally remembered it and wanted to locate DVDs of it, but had no recollection of what it was called... Recently I watched Season 2 of "Shameless" and as soon as John Woodvine appeared in it (as Neville Galagher) I recognized that he performed in the series and it gave me a vital clue. I scoured his filmography until I finally found this series. I'm glad to see that there are others that remember it, even if they are few. Hopefully I'll be able to find a copy of the series somewhere so I can watch it again.Hopefully it won't disappoint me, I watched it many years ago.

This show was fantastic, I have only the vaguest memories of it now, but I remember being gripped at the time, because it was like nothing i'd ever seen before. My parents just wouldn't watch sci-fi, so i missed loads of it, but i used to watch it with my brother whenever i could. But it wasn't really sci-fi, it had this medieval quality, maybe because of all the court politics and religious overtones. I had the novelisation too. The Knights crossed swords symbol is still imprinted in my imagination and i think i'd still be scared even now if i met John Woodvine. Fantastic television, definitely worth a DVD.In fact, if today's telly people looking to counter or capitalise on Doctor Who's current success made more shows like this and less reheated dross like Primeval or Robin Hood the world would be a better place.

It's typical that as I write this it has yet to receive 5 votes, despite being 16 years old. I watched it on British TV when I was 11, and I was totally hooked. Maybe being Welsh helped, maybe being into that other great british SF series Doctor Who helped, but I thought this was a superior slice of homegrown SF with a startling twist at the end. This is a serial in which the hero spends much of its running time brainwashed by the dictator! It's hard to imagine something this brave ever being commissioned as, essentially, a kids' show. Like most great kids' shows, it was far more than just a kids' show. Release it on DVD now!