Okay, so it's a Friday afternoon and I'm kicking back, generally piddling away time doing nothing. I stumble across my old VHS collection, which included Crystal Maze (The Richard O'Brien era) which frankly was supurb. The Tudor-Pole was good, but the Maze was without its charm when O'Brien left.
The set was divided into four 'Zones' (originally Aztec, Futuristic, Medieval and Industrial; Industrial was replaced by Ocean from series 4 onwards), as well as the Crystal Dome, a giant 'crystal' at the centre of the maze, where the teams play their final challenge after playing games in each of the four Zones.
In each episode, a team consisting of three men and three women (including a team captain and vice-captain) would enter the 'maze,' starting from a pre-determined Zone, and play three or four games of various types in each Zone before entering the Crystal Dome. The teams were put together by Chatsworth from individual applicants, only meeting each other for the first time on the day before filming their episode
The objective of the show was to amass as many 'time crystals' as possible (these were golf ball-sized Swarovski glass crystals) by playing the games in each Zone; each game successfully played would win one 'time crystal.' When the team reached the Crystal Dome, they had to collect as many gold 'tokens' as possible in order to win a prize. Each crystal that the team won earlier would allow them five seconds of time in the Dome to collect tokens, so the more crystals the team won in the Zones, the more time and thus the better chance they had of getting a high gold token count.A combination of O'Brien's charisma and quirkyness made the maze a hit for many years, entertaining all ages.
Next on the VHS list was Earth Jim...a stark contrast to the Maze
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