The Crystal Maze

The Crystal Maze was a popular British game show produced by Chatsworth Television and aired on Channel 4 in the UK from February 15, 1990, to August 10, 1995. It ran for one series each year, with Richard O’Brien hosting the first four series and Ed Tudor-Pole taking over for the last two. Each episode lasted an hour, including commercial breaks.

Initially, the show was meant to be a British adaptation of the French game show Fort Boyard, created by Jacques Antoine. However, due to the unavailability of the French set, British producer Malcolm Heyworth reimagined the concept, incorporating themed zones to maintain visual interest.

The series takes place in “The Crystal Maze,” which consists of four distinct zones set in different times and locations. A team of six contestants competes in various challenges to earn “time crystals.” Each crystal grants the team five extra seconds in “The Crystal Dome,” the maze’s centerpiece where the final challenge occurs.

Constructing the maze cost £250,000, and it spanned an area equivalent to two football fields. At its peak, the show was Channel 4’s most-watched program, drawing between 4 and 6 million viewers regularly. In both 2006 and 2010, it was voted the “greatest UK game show of all time” by UKGameshows.com readers, who described it as “a highly ambitious, high-risk show that paid off handsomely.”