The Crystal Maze

Alright then, it's a classic, this I won't deny, I am a great fan myself but in 1994 I saw the light. I accidentally tuned in Fort Boyard on cable and I was hooked instantly and I will go into my reasons for liking FB over CM later on.

Channel 4 wanted to make Fort Boyard ten years ago except the Fort wasn't ready (when FB first started, lots of European TV companies were interested and put money into it) so impatiently, Channel 4 commissioned The Crystal Maze - like Fort Boyard, only more perhaps rounded in what was being tested. Still, it was the brainchild of the same set of people. Instead of a Fort, four adventure timezones were introduced and instead of keys they collected crystals. Instead of the Treasure Room, you had the Crystal Dome and instead of Gold Boyards you had Dairy Milk wrappers.

The game was inherently easy (i don't get people who found it complicated - sorry). A team of six played games inside the various rooms of the zones in order to win Time Crystals. The games came in four flavours, Physical, Mental, Skill and Mystery (which could be anything). Each game took between two and three minutes to play and if they didn't get out of the room in time the host would lock them in and it would cost the team one of their precious crystals to buy them out again. This is a bad thing. Good things include winning the crystal inside the room and getting out again within the time. They could leave a room empty handed.

The sets on the whole were lovely and they were huge. The four original zones of Aztec, Medieval, Industrial and Futuristic were generally very good and when Industrial changed to Ocean it was very nice.

The host was very good too, or at least Dickie O Brien was (sorry, 'Richard'). Everyone likes Richard O Brien, the man's a legend for goodness sake (he wrote the legendary Rocky Horror Show) and his ability to improvise, be funny and be harsh but fair was great. Ed Tudor Pole paled in comparison, sadly.

The games themselves ranged from a bit poor to bordering on genius. There was a nice diversity of tasks on offer, fifty new ones for each series no less, and very few were repeated. Im afraid I can't be bothered to list many though, if you want a list Andy from the Fort Boyard page (link to the left) does a nice one on his CM page. It's got pictures too. Take a look. A quick mention here must go to 'Mr' David Bodycombe, colleague at Labyrinth Games, who came up with some of the best ones such as the inverted game where the idea wasn't so much get the Crystal, which was just there for the taking, but actually getting out of the room the exit of which was blocked off by grille shortly after taking said Crystal. He's a little bit misguided as to whether Maze or Boyard is better however, hem hem.

The team have about ten minutes in each zone which is enough for three or four games. The first series saw 4,4,3 and four whilst later series saw 3,3,4,3 games in total. To get to one zone to another they'd have to cross a small obsticle, say a rope bridge, a tunnel, a big wall and so on and so forth and if someone gets locked in then from an earlier zone then the player who lets them out has to back through all the zones to get back to them.

Each Crystal won is worth precisely five seconds of collecting time in the Crystal Dome. After the four zones all the remaining team members go inside and try and collect gold tokens and post them through a letterbox. Also in there were silver tokens and if any of those went in then their total of gold would decrease by one. If the team manage one hundred gold tokens, after deduction of silver, then they'd win an action packed holiday somewhere.

And of course it was great and throughly deserved it's six series that it got and who knows, perhaps it would have had longer if people didn't switch off because Ed Tudor Pole wasn't as good.

Except of course that something big and French come guntoting into town. And it's better. Here are some of the arguments I've had against FB and for CM and why they are in fact wrong.

1) Crystal Maze is better structured than Fort Boyard.

Correct response: No it's not.

Players play a few games in a zone then they mysteriously run out of time JUST as the last game has finished only to do exactly the same thing again. Repeat for forty-five minutes. Afterwards, take your hard earned fifteen seconds in the dome for an exciting anti-climax.

In Fort Boyard there is actually progression throughout the show. Timed Challenges turn into Indiana Jones style adventures by way of short duels in a dark room. The time isn't taken up by exactly the same thing happening over and over (but see below).

2) The end-game for CM is better.

Correct response: Yes it is, providing you think that watching a team do varied things for 45 minutes involving lots of hard work collect Dairy Milk wrappers blowing inside a Giant Crystal for fifteen seconds where you don't have much of an idea of how well they're doing makes for a great end-game. You could be really good during the main show but not be too good at one particular unimportant skill and lose. That's not right is it?

Fort Boyard works because the action melds together seamlessly. The last adventure leads almost straight into the end-game and how well the team has done during the show will indicate if they will win or not. Most will win - that's fine, but bad teams are penalised by less time because they need more time to think (eating into Treasure Room time) and less people to carry out Treasure.

3) There's no correlation between good teams and the amount they win on FB.

Correct response: So what? Good teams generally do better than really bad teams but sometimes bad teams do well and good teams don't. It's just like Crystal Maze really. I would point out that it only works because the legend, that if you conquer the Fort you can take as much gold as you can carry out with you, allows it to. It works on entertainment.

4) They don't invent lots of new games each year on FB.

Correct response: OK, it's a fair point, ten new games isn't much compared to 50 new games, but I'm not bored of the show yet, and neither is France by the looks of things which has made it to ten years and a definite eleventh. Obviously because the idea is outdated (the reason given for Maze's demise).

5) They changed the scary things for mental games on CM.

Correct response: common misconception - there were no adventures in the first series, La Cles de Fort Boyard bar a bungee jump at the end and a swim through the Flooded Rooms to get to the Treasure Room.

6) They mess about with the clock in FB.

Correct response: hypocrite. At least there is a proper clock in FB, unlike the wishy-washy 'oh, let's move on' of Crystal Maze. And FB does try and film in real time, only breaking when games have to be set up first. A British FB show takes two hours to film. A Britsh CM show takes two days. And knowing a contestant who's been on both FB was the better one to film and take part in. So ner.

7) CM has a better fantasy setting.

Correct response: Yes, that's because it's fantasy. The Fort goes for atmosphere and entertainment within the confines of the story it has set up for itself.

So, to end then, The Crystal Maze was the ultimate televised management training course. Fort Boyard is the ultimate adventure game show. Sorted.

Verdict: 8.5/10 - Yes, it's a fairly negative review which I apologize for (I'm in that sort of mood), but honestly, some people...