Well this was surprising

By | June 24, 2015

My favourite bit of The Crystal Maze was when they went “WHAT HAVE I GOT TO D…oh it’s alright I saw this on telly last week.”

Surely, surely, most of the idea of The Crystal Maze and why it worked as a returning show was that it constantly threw new things at contestants (and indeed shouting viewers) to work out. Surely that is the experience and to me it’s a bit worrying the question has to be asked in the first place. Of the 300-odd games the Maze had over its six year run, 90%+ were unique concepts, others used existing apparatus in different ways.

I still don’t know what the plan is regarding what you get for your money, for a team of eight players I want 16 games, four per zone, two per player *minimum*, accepting that the puzzle dungeon if you get locked in counts as a game. Each game is going to need to be reset before the next team come round – if it all hangs together properly it’s going to be quite some feat.

I do want this to be brilliant, but I do wonder if they’ve bitten more than they can chew.

You Can’t Beat a Bit Of Bully

By | June 23, 2015

Challenge are making an hour long Bullseye documentary called You Can’t Beat A Bit Of Bully for later this year because.

Here is channel director Steven Ladlow’s Boring Press Release Quote (courtesy of Broadcast):

Bullseye was a landmark for British TV gameshows, occupying a golden age of primetime TV viewing. This will be a great opportunity for viewers to witness first-hand how the show became so popular from the people who were instrumental in ensuring its success.”

It will be interesting to see if they can uncover anything we don’t know already, the history of Bullseye has been detailed variously many times. It’s been nine years since Challenge tried a relaunch of the show with Dave Spikey, and like all Challenge relaunches there was initial interest and a fairly quick tail off.

Crowdfunding You Bet WINNER!

By | June 21, 2015

crowdyoubetSuccess! The Crystal Maze Live Experience has met its £500,000 target and that means that 79% of you were right.

One of you who voted “yes” has been picked at random to win the £20 prize and I can now reveal that COLMAN BELL is the lucky winner. Congratulations!

Now let’s hope the organizers can build something worthy of the name.