Series 4 Episode 4 - Laughter in the face of failure (w/ Behind The Scenes Clips)

There were 83 episodes of TCM in the 90's, including kids specials at Christmas, and of all of them there's one that stands out to me. People have suggested reviewing every episode and, whilst a good idea, that means 83 reviewing covering roughly 80 hours of material. However this one in particular is a show I want to give a bit of attention to.

First shown on 15th April 1993, S4E4 contained a record that remained until Richard Ayoade took over. And whilst that record was achieved in now standard 10 games, 27 years ago they didn't have a fixed amount of games to play, it was just however many they could squeeze in. Series 4 each episode had either 14 or 15 games and I'm talking here about a 14 episode show. I'm talking about the fewest crystals achieved by a team, in this case, one.

Wendy, Andrew, Dave, Hilary, Spencer and Jane

This is pretty much the only episode where I can recall a specific memory of watching a repeat of it as a child, I'm guessing I was around 10. I was staying at an elderly relatives second home for a week, we borrowed the house off them as we were going to a wedding elsewhere in the country and it was just a lot closer than making a long drive in the morning. The couple getting married, he was the bloke who took me to see Phantom Menace so this must have been late 90's. This house had a huge garden and I was quite content just watching TV as I always have been. And it must have been the summer holidays as this repeat was being shown as part of The Bigger Breakfast.

The team started off well, earning 3 crystals after 6 games. 50% isnt bad. Keep that up over a 14 game episode and you've 35 seconds in the dome, enough to make a good go at winning a weekend bog snokelling in Wales. However from then it starts something of a downward trajectory. A lock in for Hilary on Ocean's Amphibious RC vehicle game, three mines were hit and so the door was bolted.

This was followed by three more lost games on the trot. 10 games in, three crystals, one lock-in. Then a glimmer of hope, a win in their last game of zone 3 (Aztec) bringing them up to four. They move on to Futuristic and decide to forfeit one of their four for a buy out. However as Hilary is being retrieved by Andrew, another game leads to another lock-in. Spencer doesn't really get the gist of the game and spends most of it looking at the objects in the room instead of focusing on the little word game in front of him. And with a no conferring rule for this little challenge, he's left very confused. Then as he's being counted down, he's so tuned out and focusing on the shelves he only realizes the time limit too late and the door stays closed.

Hilary and Andrew return and Hilary goes straight into another game, promptly losing. They then move onto the last game and decide to buy out Spencer so Wendy goes up the corridor and Dave plays with a 'Movement Sensitive Crystal Safe", a heavy box with a spirit level on top that triggers an alarm if it isn't kept level. Halfway through, its all gone wrong, Daves locked in, he's laughing at how much of a disaster everythings been, Wendy and Spencer return from his cell which seemed to have been relocated far further away since it took over a minute to go up one short corridor, open a door and return. They buy Dave out too and thus a record is born.

"The measure of your success"

Considering they had the worst total going into the dome, they didn't have the worst score coming out. Mostly becasue they didn't have time to dig themselves into a really deep minus score. After a bit of light hearted schtick - "I'm going to bother to bring the bridge up" - they go in and use their five seconds to come out with 10 gold and 14 silver, leaving them a grand non-score of -4.

What was great about this episode is that years later, a lot of years later, some behind the scenes stuff turned up on YouTube. Dave Murphy (last lock-in) uploaded some footage he filmed from his experience.