Crossbow is a 1980s television version of the
William Tell legend. It was created by
Anthony Horowitz. The first episode hews pretty close to the original legend, and the rest of the series follows the adventures of Will and his son Matthew continuing to fight the tyrannical Gessler.
Crossbow provides examples of:
- Accents Aren't Hereditary: The royal family are played by an Englishman, an American and a Frenchwoman who speaks English with an American twang. They story is technically supposed to be set in Switzerland, but no-one bothers to try and sound Swiss, or even to sound the same as each other.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Gessler has grand plans to marry Princess Irena. Unfortunately for him, she hates him.
- Bad Boss: Working for Gessler is a thankless task. Expect to be double-crossed at the first occasion.
- Black Knight: Gessler's men are actually called the Black Knights.
- The Butcher: Gessler
- Chewing the Scenery: Jeremy Clyde does this incessantly. It is marvellous.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Inevitably, Will wears white and rustic brown, and Gessler wears a lot of black. Will even has a White Stallion to Gessler's black horse.
- Contrived Coincidence: Will always happens to be strolling by right when the One-Shot Character of the Week is running away from Horst.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Give Gessler some villain points for coming up with the idea of punishing Will with a marksmanship challenge carrying the threat of maiming or killing his own son. Of course, he didn't count on Will's Improbable Aiming Skills.
- Cool Sword: Everyone's got one, due to the Medieval setting.
- Disappeared Dad: From Matthew's point of view, Will is this to him.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: In the final episode Gessler writes an account of his life which he decides to call “My Struggle”. In the Gessler families’ native Austrian this would be translated to “Mein Kampf”.
- Doomed Hometown: Alas, poor Claremont.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Will disguises himself as a soldier on a regular basis.
- The Dung Ages: The ordinary people are pretty scruffy looking, but it's averted by the extremely well-dressed Gessler and the royal family.
- '80s Hair: Abounds, but is particularly noticible with Will Lyman's and Jeremy Clyde's then very fashionable blow-waved hairdos.
- Enemy Mine: Will and Gessler get captured by BRIAN BLESSED, and have to team up to escape. Note: not a cheese dream, the plot of "Misalliance". Also leads to an Embarrassing Rescue for all parties when Tyroll and Eleanor also team up.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Gessler says of the Emperor "He's the most evil, scheming creature left over from the Flood. How else do you think he's survived for so long?" (Projection, much?)
- Evil Is Hammy: Gessler is a Large Ham.
- Evil Wears Black: Predictably for a villain in an Eighties TV show, Gessler loves black leather.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: Plenty of sword-fighting, but no blood.
- Feudal Overlord: Governor Gessler could be the page image for this trope.
- Girl of the Week: A character in "The Bet" played by HonorBlackman seems very fond of Gessler, cheering him on in the bet and challenging him to a riding competition. She is thoroughly enjoyable, and would have made a great Dark Mistress, but we never see her again. Strangely, she doesn't even get a name.
- Grand Romantic Gesture: Gessler tries giving Irena a single rose. She points out this just means he was "too cheap to buy the whole bouquet."
- He-Man Woman Hater: Gessler, who after being rejected by Irena sulks "women are such fickle creatures! I prefer horses, they're much more predictable."
- The Hero: Will, naturally.
- The High Middle Ages: The story takes place in the 14th century.
- Historical Fantasy: Crossbow is more of an action series, but does stray into fantasy sometimes.
- I Don't Pay You to Think: Guessler points out to Tyroll in the Pilot, "Don't ever think, just follow orders."
- I Gave My Word: Tyroll literally says "you have my word" to Eleanor in "Misalliance". Gessler is, of course, livid.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Will's ability with a crossbow is his most famous attribute.
- Knight in Shining Armor: Averted. Will is merely a former mercenary and blacksmith, not a member of the gentry. He is pretty chivalrous to women, though.
- Master Archer: Will, of course.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: William Tell is a Swiss legend. The cast's accents are a jumble of British and American. note Except for Hans Meyer (Tyroll) who was born in South Africa to German parents, and seems to have spent an inordinate amount of his career playing Nazis.
- Offing the Offspring: Poor Matthew could have ended up dead thanks to Gessler's cruelty. Lucky Will's a Master Archer.
- Papa Wolf: Will spends most of Season One trying to reunite with Matthew.
- Prince Charmless: Prince Ignatius. Not actually evil but a lazy stupid Royal Brat.
- Public Domain Character: Will and Gessler are indeed the main characters of the original myth, which the first couple of episodes depict pretty well. Matthew was called Walter in the original story.
- Refusal of the Call: Will says in the first episode "you give me a choice between war and Gessler, and I'll take Gessler every time." Naturally, he changes his mind.
- Royal "We": The Emperor uses this.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Emperor gives Gessler one in 'The Citadel'.
- Reluctant Ruler: The Emperor is bored to tears by his role in life, but is stuck with it.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Gessler and Horst are both this. In contrast, Tyroll is a Punch-Clock Villain.
- Token Competent Minion: Tyroll, who should probably just being in charge anyway.
- Ultimate Job Security: The Emperor frequently tells Gessler that he is poor at governing, but never thinks to sack him.
- Villain of the Week: Despite the prominence of Gessler, the series did have these.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In a slightly confusing couple of scenes in "The Rebirth", it looks like Princess Irena gets forced to marry Gessler. It looks like it could be the beginning of a possibly very interesing plot thread about her being The Mole for the resistance. Then she just...vanishes.
- William Telling: Will, famously.
- You Have Failed Me: Happens to the Villain of the Week and Mooks on a regular basis.
- You Said You Would Let Them Go: Gessler and Tyroll have quite a disagreement on this subject in "Misalliance".
