It’s Mother’s Day today in the UK (and Nigeria, according to Wikipedia) so it’s time to ask the question who is the best mother in gameshows?
The obvious answer is of course Mumsey from The Crystal Maze and here is Richard O’ Brien’s touching tribute:
Speaking of The Crystal Maze, the Live Experience is currently in its testing period and all signs are pointing to it being rather good – cynical as I was about the idea I’m quite looking forward to going in April.
Edit: Doubtless you might have noticed that we’re looking a bit different today. Basically I got fed up with how the site was working on my mobile so I’m trying out a few things. The new set up is a bit cleaner and uncluttered, if you’re having issues please let me know.
Yes, I’ll reiterate what I said on Television Forum. If you’ve backed this intend to go and don’t leave happy I’d be surprised. Traditionalists might not be happy with a more modern interpretation of Future World or a richer feeling Industrial, but that’s more like how I’d expect to see it on TV if it were brought back now.
As expected a lot of the games are directly taken from the show, but that shouldn’t bother you once you’re there when you’ll get caught up with the moment, most will probably freeze and not remember how these games were played anyway.
On the first night of testing they’d not figured out how to count the tokens as they had to stick them back in as the dome was running a bit light after so many had been taken out. The tokens were more like TV top prize winning confetti than tokens, I’d rather something a bit more substantial to gather up around about the size of a bank note. It was just gold tokens for ease of counting, so it just comes down to which team has the most. The dome sequence just felt like the only part which wasn’t well organised and a well choreographed piece of thearte. Which is understandable considering this was merely a test.
The lock-in process hadn’t been properly thought out and was largely ignored by our maze master on this run through. Although I think the punishment should just be being put in some sort of cage for the next game only, but allowed to leave sooner if you manage to crack a lock puzzle.
We were lucky in that our team had a player missing so a few of us got to play three games, I think playing any less could make some feel short changed though so they should look at a way to ensure everyone does three as well as the dome. As I said the maze master tried their best to make sure everyone was catered for and she also tried to make sure that everyone got the categories of games that wanted to play. You also feel very involved in everyone else’s games.
No sign of Mumsey when I went, considering it’s meant to be her bar that we sat in at the beginning and I’m guessing she will be around once the thing gets under way for real
The organisers gave us a questionnaire before we left so they do seem keen to take in feedback. The issue being it all happens so quickly you’d forgotten half the games, as it all felt like a bit of a blur. For example at the end I couldn’t remember having won half the Crystals we had going into the dome.
One of the questions on the questionnaire was, what is your overwhelming emotion on completing The Crystal Maze, if your answer isn’t along the lines of excitement or joy etc, I’d be very surprised.
I see Christian O’Connell Absolute Radio’s Breakfast show are going to be going to the Maze before the opening, so we may well get to see some online video (rights permitting) I wonder if one of the two former Maze Masters might be used as the guide. I cant’t help but feel Ant & Dec will do something Crystal Maze related before their series concludes during the Ant vs Dec segment.
Here’s the report from tonight’s London Tonight. Includes still images from the zones.
https://youtu.be/9T4Ng2YS7QE
Those images also here. http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/great-days-out/crystal-maze-london-first-look-a3199571.html
Thanks to TV Forum’s London Lite for this upload.
Where are all the lowercase I’s? 😉
How bizarre.
They seem to have reappeared now.
I had no idea what this was about until I saw Nico W’s comment in the Hit List thread, basically it’s limited to mobile (which is handled by WordPress’ Jetpack thing) and there was another update this morning which seems to have fixed it.
I’ve found at least one review (no link, obviously) which purports to spoil some of the games that are in the Maze – not out of malice, but out of journalism. Beware. If the fun is being surprised by the games and adapting to them, knowing which games in advance you’re going to play kind of ruins the effect.