[Brekkie]

Perhaps The Crystal Maze was just too iconic to bring back and though I liked Richard Ayode myself he's very much marmite. Scheduling was all over the place and it never felt in the right slot, and when they did move it what you might think of as the right slot it didn't do too well either. Indeed I think the final 3 episodes buried away on E4 did relatively better than it did on C4.

I don't think cutting to 10 games helped - they probably could have kept it at 12 with a bit less chit chat and having more games closer to the 2 minute mark than 3 minutes. There were little annoyances like not strictly moving clockwise/anti-clockwise around the maze and the starts and links not being that great - perhaps it's those little touches which do keep a remake feel authentic, but I'm not completely sure they're the deal breaker here. Similarly there were far too many celeb episodes but not sure they were the reason it just didn't take off either.

I think the ad structure now compared to the 90s doesn't do commercial revivals any favours - you're either cutting a chunk out of it to fit it to the hour or having to expand the format to 75/90 minutes and then it feels jam packed with ads. I think there was a feeling when it aired it might have benefitted from the BBC picking it up instead where it could air ad free.


As for You Bet - I'm quite surprised it's never been revived as on paper it would tick alot of boxes, especially having a celebrity panel each week but primarily being a game featuring the British public. And though it didn't work out for them in the US it does feel like a perfect vehicle for Ant and Dec here.