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. 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.

Based on the homonymous novel by Pai Hsien-yung, the story takes place in Taipei in the 1970s, and follows a short period in the life of a young man called Li-Qing (nicknamed A-Qing). When A-Qing is expelled from his school because of "scandalous relations" with classmate Zhao Ying, his father kicks him out of the family home. A-Qing begins to hang out at a park called New Park, a gay cruising area and hangout for gay men, where he meets the novel's other primary characters.

An American writer living in Rome witnesses an attempted murder that is connected to an ongoing killing spree in the city, and conducts his own investigation despite himself and his girlfriend being targeted by the killer.

Set during the Cold War, the Soviets—led by sword-wielding Irina Spalko—are in search of a crystal skull which has supernatural powers related to a mystical Lost City of Gold. Indy is coerced to head to Peru at the behest of a young man whose friend—and Indy's colleague—Professor Oxley has been captured for his knowledge of the skull's whereabouts.

Jamie is a boorish, insensitive American twentysomething traveling in Chile, who somehow manages to create chaos at every turn. He and his friends are planning on taking a road trip north to experience a legendary shamanistic hallucinogen called the San Pedro cactus. In a fit of drunkenness at a wild party, Jamie invites an eccentric woman—a radical spirit named Crystal Fairy—to come along.