The Crystal Maze returns to C4

I doubt ITV cares, it has cheap import on ITV and Love island is 5th biggest programme of that slot. I was able to see parts, not really keen on the Celeb version but as others have said there been faithful.

I'm not surprised. It's run into "tricky third series" territory, and seems to be more heavily edited than before, giving it the impression (although it's apparently not the case) that it wasn't filmed in front of an audience. And it's gone bloomin' film effect!

Anyway, Crystal Maze - better than I'd hoped. The in-game music isn't distracting at all. The through-the-door edits are odd, but understandable. In the old days you were lucky to get one game that warranted satefy equipment - I doubt anyone doing the swinging-from-planets game would have got a helmet back then - so spending a bit of time getting someone kitted out ddn't matter. Can't be doing that 3-4 times a show, though.

I'm a bit disappointed they didn't plump for a fully orchestrated theme tune, though. Oh, and a 5.1 sound mix would be nice too

Annoying it got beaten by yet another Peter Kayak comoilation, especially when half of that is probably made up of C4 content.

Watching it back this evening I enjoyed Richard as the host, seemed to fit in well. Enjoyed the amusing reference to the teleporting being a special effect, and the edits. In the original series where safety harness/helmet/gauntlets were needed to be worn Richard/Ed would get the contestant to put them on before entering the room.

The sets were nice, though would have liked to see the transitions used to fit in with the map. I think the new future zone will still take some getting used to. The games seemed fairly good, the 'extinguish the lights' game seemed familiar.

Contestant wise 5 seems okay, though I found Louis to be rather annoying & distracting. It would be nice if for the regular series the chat prior to entering the dome could be shortened to allow for an extra game. The initial contestant intro via pics was nice and quick in the style of the original series.

Overall fairly pleased with the new series, and it stands up to the original series reasonably well.

But then how many watched the preview online diluting the BARB figures?

Who knows, plus I suspect it'll be timeshifted a lot over the weekend. I'd imagine it'll be over 3m once those who recorded it last night and watched it over the weekend are taken into account. In that regard previewing it online probably works given the slot as it forces those (without ad blockers anyway) to watch the ads. Just wish it was available via the Smart TV app - ended up having to watch it via a browser as Chromecasting it just left the info bar on and the quality wasn't great.


As for the Futuristic zone - I love that they changed it and think it looks great, though I agree the new layout should be reflected on the map. I think I'd have preferred new interpretations of at least some of the other zones too, although I must say Industrial does look far better than the original. Would still prefer Ocean myself but think I'm in a minority on that. Suspect my preference is due to series 4 being the first I watched as a kid, only seeing the Industrial episodes when they were repeated a few years later.

I had no idea there were so many variations of the original theme tune used.

And all of them sound better than the tinny remix we got this time around.

All epic bits of music but sound dated now, the new theme is very cinematic.

There were a lot of variations of the original theme! It looks like they couldn't decide how to loop it. One version exists because the music kicked in late due to a silent memorial card for a contestant who died between filming and airing, and series 4's credits were considerably shorter than the other series, so those edits weren't surprising. The rest of them seem to be just minor changes on a whim, especially during series 1 (it's easy to tell when each one is from - I assume Fortune Teller was replaced with Mumsie at the start of series 2, and then you can see the font changed for series 3 and the presenter changed for series 4 - only the final one is from series 5, evidenced by the production company's change of logo).

Wouldn't there have been yet another two versions? From the title sequences?

I'm not convinced there was that many versions of the original theme as such, it seems to me to be more a case of mixing the length up for variety. Even the music bed between zone changes and used on the dome sequences is a mixed collection of lengths and loops as I can't seriously think there was a specific track for 5 seconds in the dome, one for 10 seconds, one for 15, etc - it would be easier just to use the bed and edit the ending on as appropriate, surely?

Yea, all sounds like the same recording to me.

Ironic considering the charity involved but Spence is a cancer on this first episode. Makes it really hard to rewatch.

In terms of the kids factor my sister tried to get my nephew to watch the new series on Awful, but he got bored half way in and demanded to watch an episode of kids show Sir Peppa Pig, I dare say the slower pacing and the Spence factor played a part in that. Kids are important because it's that demographic that's helps the show on a reboot 20 or so years later.

Interesting development via Brig Bothers Bar, the bar's reporter Danny Kerner has revealed via Twitface that in future episodes they can travel betweens in zones in any order, any order! Which I don't think is bad thing for a TV show that can travel through time and space, it's The Crystal Maze's equivalent of the Dalek's being able to go up stairs these days!