The Crystal Maze

The old thread was archived so here’s a new one.

Looks as though The Crystal Maze has been confirmed to be returning for another series, however the Medieval Zone is now being replaced with an Asian themed ‘Eastern Zone’

https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-05-20/the-crystal-maze-channel-4-new-zone-eastern-zone-2019-episodes/

A new zone is a welcome change. I thought I read somewhere they were only doing a few celebrity episodes, and that was presumably going to be the last of it?

I believe there are quite a few unaired episodes of the first couple of series...

I’d have probably replaced Industrial again. Excited to see a new zone though.

From that picture it looks more like a redressing of Future.

My guess from that image it’s smaller and is in fact a budget cut.

Interesting and unexpected. Let the accusations of cultural appropriation begin!

Its an interesting choice, the original show made a deal out of "four adventure time zones" (until Ocean came along) but the choice of games for it may make it look like a mismash of styles. Time will tell.

Re: Budget, well Crystal has never been cheap. The original show was apparently £125k an episode.

That is another annoying thing about celeb episodes - they're probably all taking home £5k-£10k an episode at least, budget which could be better spent on the show itself.

Do you know how many didn’t air & why?

I love the show but surprises me it’s still going as the ratings haven’t been great.

No, but I think it's been a year or so now since any civilian editions have aired.

I recall reading the original plan was for the 4 zones to change every series, but the sheer expense of filming a single episode meant only the Industrial Zone was changed, a few series in.

There's all kinds of things they wanted to do and then never did for one reason or another:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/to-the-crystal-dome

But yes, the original set cost a fortune to build and another fortune to run, it ate electricity like there was no tomorrow.

Would probably use less electricity now, thanks to LED lighting and other modern energy saving things.

Back then though the money spent could be seen on screen. The expensive aesthetic was partly what made it so good. This modern version doesn't really stand up in the same epic way.