A 1998 Made-for-TV Movie directed by Roger Young, loosely based on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, that has a researcher (Whoopi Goldberg) going back in time to Camelot after a computer malfunction.
The movie also stars Michael York, Paloma Baeza, Simon Fenton, James Coombes, Robert Addie, Ian Richardson, Amanda Donohoe, John Guerrasio, and Steve Speirs.
It aired on November 8, 1998 as part of The Wonderful World of Disney.
Tropes for the film:
- Convenient Eclipse: Vivien Morgan accidentally travels back in time with her laptop into the period of Arthurian Legend and is soon arrested. Looking up info on her laptop that there should be a solar eclipse right at the time of her execution, she bluffs her way out of burning stake by threatening the locals with eternal darkness as the moon passes by.
- Droit du Seigneur: While Sir Boss is preparing to duel the villainous Sir Sagramore, her friend Clarence eventually reveals the real reason he doesn't want her to fight: He takes her to six graves apart from the rest of the cemetery, which are his mother, father, grandfather, his eldest sister, her new husband, and his baby brother. All died on the same day fourteen years ago when their lord, Sir Sagramore, came to claim his right to his bride's virginity, and her husband - a freeman not of that estate - refused him. Six-year-old Clarence escaped into the woods while his whole family was killed, and afterwards Sagramore wouldn't even allow them to be buried on consecrated ground. Ever since, Clarence has dreamed the day when he would take Revenge, and he came to Camelot so that one day he could be a knight and have the right to challenge him. Clarence feels he is the only one who should be allowed to face Sir Sagramore in a Duel to the Death, but when Sir Boss asks him if he wants her to chicken out, he says no: she must fight him to the death. After this, she petitions King Arthur and asks why he can't just arrest Sir Sagramore instead of letting the duel happen, but much to her frustration Arthur replies, for what crime? Even if the testimony of a commoner were to be believed over the word of a knight, Clarence himself admitted that his brother-in-law denied Sir Sagramore his legal right of the bride's first night, and it doesn't matter if Arthur thinks Sagramore's punishment was excessively harsh: it was still lawful punishment and not murder. Sir Boss angrily asks whether he made that law - and when he tells her he didn't, why he can't just change it - but he blithely tells her that the king's duty is to uphold the ancient laws and customs, including this one.
- The Film of the Book: Loosely based on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
- Tagline: "King Arthur's Round Table will never be the same!".
- The Web Always Existed: Vivien could access the Web while in The Middle Ages. This doesn't even get into the lack of electricity...
