The Crystal Maze returns to C4

There was an article saying half of either Industrial or Medievil comes down the whole of one comes down, from memory meaning Future and Aztec stay up.

Not sure about the Dome as it’s more like a traditional studio I imagine it comes down.

I think it's built across multiple stages with the bulk of it an old warehouse, so suspect the warehouse sets stay up and the sound stage sets come down.

I guess that explains why you don't see the transitions from zone to zone, as they aren't physically connected.

I thought as much, the original set (@ Shepperton I think?) in the first series was as big as the current one but the later revision was much bigger and took over an entire airport hangar somewhere in Essex I think it was when it was relocated.

Shepperton studios - first series
'Aces High' studios (basically two old aircraft hangers at the decommissioned RAF North Weald in Essex) until the reboot.
The move was due to more space, and Channel 4/Chatsworth could hire the set out for corporate/team building events during the down time between series.

And apparently the set stood for years after cancellation. I'd love to see pictures of it from this era, but none have emerged as yet.

What is labelled as Series 5 of Crystal Maze started tonight, though I suspect in reality it isn't anywhere near that production wise. Complete with random Tipping Point insert, which after a bit of poking about seems to have moved filming location to Bristol after moving around various venues in London over the years.

Excellent show tonight!!! Loved the bit where they ran across the set of Tipping Point whilst travelling from Industrial to Aztec whilst Ben Shepherd was asking questions!! Haha!! Probably cos they were Gamers, they wanted to take them on the ultimate journey through TV gaming history. Was a TV 1st though!! It was good of Tipping Point to allow them to do this!!

Fizz produce both.

It sounds like they haven't given much thought to the dome music. In the old series, it always seemed to loop perfectly however many seconds they had. This latest team had 45 seconds, and there were some weird loops/repeats to make it fit.

Sounds like its the main theme, but remember the original show didn't use the theme tune for the dome, it used the alternative version with a beat (same as for zone changes).


In fact next time O'Brien Crystal Maze comes back onto Challenge you'll note that in the first few episodes of the first series they didn't use the above "beat" at all outside of the dome, in fact for back from the break and still zone changing there was no music at all and the regular theme was used instead to go into the break bumpers.

Caught up with last night's Crystal Maze.

Fairly surreal if truth be told and a quite gobby set of contestants IMO. Picking all the faults out of the game you've just lost doesn't really do any favours...