The Crystal Maze was a British game show, produced by Chatsworth Television and shown on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom between 15 February 1990 and 10 August 1995. There was one series per year, with the first four series presented by Richard O’Brien and the final two by Ed Tudor-Pole. Each show was one hour long, including adverts.
The show was originally intended to be a British remake of the French programme Fort Boyard, devised by Jacques Antoine. However, the unavailability of the French show’s set led British producer Malcolm Heyworth to reinvent the show, using themed zones as a means to keep the show visually fresh.
The series is set in “The Crystal Maze”, which features four different “zones” set in various periods of time and space. A team of six contestants take part in a series of challenges in order to win “time crystals”. Each crystal gives the team five seconds of time inside “The Crystal Dome”, the centrepiece of the maze where the contestants take part in their final challenge.
The maze cost £250,000 to build and was the size of two football pitches. At its height the show was the most watched on Channel 4, regularly attracting between 4 and 6 million viewers. In 2006 and again in 2010, the show was voted “greatest UK game show of all time” by readers of UKGameshows.com. This site describes the programme as “a highly-ambitious, high-risk show that paid off handsomely.”
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Judge Judy is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by retired Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin. The show features Sheindlin adjudicating real-life small claims disputes within a simulated courtroom set. All parties involved must sign contracts, agreeing to arbitration under Sheindlin. The series is in first-run syndication and distributed by CBS Television Distribution.
Judge Judy, which premiered on September 16, 1996, reportedly revitalized the court show genre. Only two other arbitration-based reality court shows preceded it, The People’s Court and Jones and Jury. Sheindlin has been credited with introducing the “tough” adjudicating approach into the judicial genre, which has led to several imitators. The two court shows that outnumber Judge Judy’s seasons, The People’s Court and Divorce Court, have both lasted via multiple lives of production and shifting arbiters, making Sheindlin’s span as a television arbiter the longest.
By 2011, Judge Judy had been nominated 14 consecutive years for Daytime Emmy Awards without ever winning. On June 14, 2013, however, Judge Judy won its first Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program on its 15th nomination. It is the first long-running, highly-rated court show to win an Emmy.
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