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The Crystal Maze was a British game show that ran on Channel 4 in the UK from February 15, 1990, to August 10, 1995. It was made by Chatsworth Television. Each year, there was one series. Richard O'Brien hosted the first four, and Ed Tudor-Pole hosted the last two. Even with the commercials, each show lasted an hour. The show was supposed to be a British version of Fort Boyard, a French show created by Jacques Antoine. But because the French show's set was not available, British producer Malcolm Heyworth had to remake the show. He used themed zones to keep the show looking new. The show takes place in "The Crystal Maze," which has four different "zones" in different places and times. A group of six people compete in a series of challenges to win "time crystals." Each crystal gives the team five seconds inside "The Crystal Dome," which is the center of the maze and where the final challenge takes place. The cost of building the maze was £250,000, and it was as big as two football fields. At its peak, the show was the most popular on Channel 4, with between 4 and 6 million people watching it every week. Readers of UKGameshows.com voted the show the "greatest UK game show of all time" in 2006 and again in 2010. This site says that the show was "highly ambitious and high-risk, but it paid off handsomely."