Crystal Maze With Dicky-ade

[Replies From View]

Another weird bit:  the nauseating pirouettist, upon learning he was locked in, whined, "Do you have any intention of letting me out?  If not I'm going to go home."

When I watched The Crystal Maze as a kid I never questioned the conceit that contestants were left physically locked in a room until they were let out.  At no point did anyone say "I'll go home if I'm not still in the game."  YOU ARE LOCKED IN, CUNT!  I SAW RICHARD O'BRIEN TURN THE FUCKING KEY IN THE LOCK!

Urgh.

[Serge]

I was annoyed that they didn't physically send somebody back to fetch Spence like the did in the old days. But when the cunt started throwing his clothes out of the window, I mean for fuck's sake - he can't bear not to be the centre of attention for longer than five seconds.

[olliebean]

How many of these celebrity shows are there?

Unless it's in the contract, going on last night's episode, I really cannot see this surviving to a "proper" series.

20 episodes have been commissioned, of which 5 (presumably the first 5) are "celebrity" "specials". I don't know how many have been filmed yet (possibly all of them), but AIUI the large upfront cost of building the sets required a large episode count to reduce the cost per episode. (The one-off with Merchant used the existing sets from the Live Experience, so that wasn't an issue.)

You can still do the Live Experience, btw, if you've got 64 quid to spare for a ticket. You don't get any prizes though, not even a souvenir crystal unless you stump up an extra tenner for it.

[Replies From View]

"They are shit, but at least we have lots of them."

[touchingcloth]

that's the problem - the self-consciousness of the show as something nostalgic and silly rather than what we had with Richard O'Brien, who treated everything as real yet gave it all a wild, eccentric energy.

When I watched The Crystal Maze as a kid I never questioned the conceit that contestants were left physically locked in a room until they were let out.  At no point did anyone say "I'll go home if I'm not still in the game." 

After the very first task of this series, I had a sudden and forceful memory of how intense things used to feel under O'Brien. When the clock was ticking close to zero and he was shouting at them to hurry up and get back to the door with the crystal before they were locked in, it used to be nail biting stuff - OH GOD DON'T GET LOCKED IN QUICK HURRY GET OUT YOU'RE GOING TO DIE.

[touchingcloth]

And to whoever it was uothread who suggested that Fort Boyard is older than Crystal Maze, I'm not having that.

[Delete Delete Delete]

Fort Boyard is a French game show created by Jacques Antoine that was first broadcast on 7 July 1990 (originally as Les Clés de Fort Boyard, however shortened to Fort Boyard from the second series in 1991). Foreign versions of the show have aired around the world since 1990.

Set and filmed on the real fortress of the same name in France, the programme appears similar to The Crystal Maze (which was created as an alternative format by Antoine for Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, after Fort Boyard itself was unavailable to film in because of its then ongoing refurbishment during 1988–89). Channel 5 later bought the rights to Fort Boyard and made their own British version, using the now refurbished set, which aired from 16 October 1998 to 29 December 2001 for four series. It was briefly revived by Challenge in 2003 for one series and the show later returned to UK television in 2012 under a new format aired on CITV, Fort Boyard: Ultimate Challenge.

[touchingcloth]

No it was from the late 90s, and it wasn't French, it was hosted by her from off of page three. Get yer facts straight.

[touchingcloth]

I agree with others who have said that five episodes of celebrity specials is a bit much and that this will be better when it reaches the prole rounds, but they missed a trick by not going all in for the nostalgia with their choice of guests. The answer to the General Bullshit thread "What is the most nineties thing?" is surely "a Crystal Maze team comprising the entire cast of This Life". Get the crystal, Egg!

[Delete Delete Delete]

A team of Pat Sharp, Timmy Mallet, Neil Bucanon, Dominic Diaomond and Violet Berlin would be the most 90's team.

[touchingcloth]

Mr Motivator as captain.

[Norton Canes]

Ended up watching a bit of this after I chanced upon it on E4+1 or some such channel yesterday. I will reluctantly concede that it's not as bad as it could have been, and with the plebs taking part it might be watchable. The production team do seem to have gone out of their way, though, to add in so many irritating little details that cumulatively make it difficult to really enjoy the show. The sound effects when a crystal becomes available to collect or when the time is about to run out, for instance. The fact that Ayoade now announces which type of game the team must play, rather than letting them decide. Cosmetic stuff, but unnecessary. The puzzles will have to get much harder too, to instil any sense that they're a challenge.

Ayoade in this reminded me of Ed Tudor Pole in his first season - very stilted, unable to creatively improvise while the contestants were engaged in challenges. At least when the public turn up he'll have to do more than poke fun at their C-list careers.

[AsparagusTrevor]

The production team do seem to have gone out of their way, though, to add in so many irritating little details that cumulatively make it difficult to really enjoy the show. The sound effects when a crystal becomes available to collect or when the time is about to run out, for instance. The fact that Ayoade now announces which type of game the team must play, rather than letting them decide. Cosmetic stuff, but unnecessary. The puzzles will have to get much harder too, to instil any sense that they're a challenge.

I found it hard to pick out any small, specific details ruining the show when there was Louis Spence spinning around the place.

[touchingcloth]

The fact that Ayoade now announces which type of game the team must play, rather than letting them decide.

I wonder if that's partly a dry run thing until they're up to speed, using celebs as guinea pigs to test out a limited number of tasks rather than setting some up only for them to go unused. Though that said, I wonder if they used to do that on the prole version anyway - make it look like they're choosing which challenges to do, when really they'd been guided by the production crew. As I recall you weren't able to just pick mental challenge after mental challenge after mental challenge in any case.

[Norton Canes]

Possibly. There's an out-take on YT where a team captain can't remember which type of game to ask for, with hilarious consequences. I got the impression that they had some kind of choice,  though - with three games per zone you at least get the chance to miss out on one type. 

[Twed]

I hope that with the celebs out of the way they'll do it 'properly' and let Richard get involved with the lore of the programme, instead of making it blatantly apparent that this is a retro throwback TV show. You HAVE to make it seem like the host lives in (or is from the world of) The Crystal Maze. That's fundamental.

[touchingcloth]

Twed, are we pronouncing this thread title as "Crystal Maze with Dicky-aid", or "Crystal Maze with Dicky-addy"?

[Twed]

Dicky-aid. I know he's Ayo-addy, but he's also Dicky-aid.

[touchingcloth]

Well Ayoade you know.

[imitationleather]

Has the second one been on? Did anyone watch it if so, or has this totally crashed and burned?

[Sin Agog]

I saw that Steve Jones was in the lineup and eagerly started streaming it now.  Only to find out it wasn't the chubby Sex Pistol but some Welsh goose egg of a man.  I don't know why I thought it would be him; he lives in L.A. and hasn't gotten on a plane in about a decade.

I'm sort of with everyone else that Ayoade isn't quite working here.  I mean, in a way it seems evolved to mention in the very first few seconds of the episode that he talks about pop culture to avoid emotional connection, but it just doesn't gel here in the same way it did for Gadget/Travel Man.  In those programs it had the dynamic of a guy joylessly teching and overanalysing his way through what are supposed to be fun holidays.  Doing that exact same thing in an adventure game just buggers it all up.  Then again, what with the line-up of people famous for wanting to be famous, this would probably be even worse with some slimey professional like Bradley Walsh.  Would that Smerch hadn't been so great in Logan so he could have retreated back to this with his tail between his legs!  He hit exactly the right tone in the one episode he did.

[TheManOne]

I really wish I could find the blog by one of the contestants from the very first series of this.
I was staggered to learn that it was all filmed ONE CAMERA! That meant they constantly had to keep stopping and shooting pick-ups - getting them to fuck the game up in the same way so they'd have enough coverage.
Also, I believe two teams ran it at a time, taking it in turns at each zone.

[Sin Agog]

OK, sending Joey Essex off to find a non-existent 'Prayer Room' did make me laugh.

[Uncle TechTip]

Possibly. There's an out-take on YT where a team captain can't remember which type of game to ask for, with hilarious consequences. I got the impression that they had some kind of choice,  though - with three games per zone you at least get the chance to miss out on one type. 

I think that's a definite, they only had one set of cameras so had to set everything up at the next game and the rest was conceit.

[Norton Canes]

I really wish I could find the blog by one of the contestants from the very first series of this.
I was staggered to learn that it was all filmed ONE CAMERA! That meant they constantly had to keep stopping and shooting pick-ups - getting them to fuck the game up in the same way so they'd have enough coverage.

I thought they filmed each team over two days - the first day 'as live', then getting them back in situ for pick-up shots on the second day. 

Also, I believe two teams ran it at a time, taking it in turns at each zone

Never heard of that. Could be!

[TheManOne]

I'm really annoyed I can't find it.
Google is now full of reference to The Crystal Maze compared to five years ago.

[Andy147]

In this Buzzfeed article, Richard O'Brien says they had 5 cameras.

I remember reading a blog (may well have been the same one) by a contestant - all i really remember him saying was
- the captain was told what game to ask to play next and "advised" who should play it
- as soon as the door to a game was opened and the contestant entered the room, the director would shout "Cut!", the contestant would be brought back out of the room, and the cameraman would go in.

[olliebean]

I'm really annoyed I can't find it.
Google is now full of reference to The Crystal Maze compared to five years ago.

Did you try setting a custom date range to exclude newer pages?

[TheManOne]

I didn't know you could do that.

[olliebean]

Yep, you click "Tools" at the top then click where it says "Any time" and select "Custom range".