This Failed 'Crystal Maze' Task Is a Dark Ballet of Human Decline

Is humankind on the way out? Are our joints wobbling loose, our skin flaking away like dried insect wings, our brains dribbling out of our ears? Perhaps we are living through the comedown: the great and ungraceful slump after the rise of civilisations and technologies. Are we experiencing a crisis of humanity?

Wait, before you answer, watch this:

For context, this is the Crystal Maze – a television programme from the 1990s which recently returned to our screens, now hosted by Moss from the IT Crowd. It's a gameshow that challenges contestants to complete a series of physical or mental tasks in order to collect crystals and then win some cash at the end. It is Tough Mudder for Doctor Who fans.

As you can probably tell, the challenge in this case is stepping from one of the hanging planets to the next, collecting a crystal at the end of the row and then working your way back. On a scale of how hard it should be, I would rate it: manageable. Yes, I'm acutely aware that I'm saying this having not tried to cross the planets, and also admittedly that the hanging planets look a big tricky to steady… but not impossibly so. Surely it's not that hard, is it? To swing yourself forward and grab a rope. Is it?

So pity Rob, clearly a gentle soul – gives off the vibe of someone who would drive everyone to see the new Avengers film and offer to buy a round of Tango Ice Blasts for good measure – yet is now a huffing, faltering icon of man's cosmic incompetence.

I'd like to think that before he steps out onto the first of the planets, Rob maybe thinks to himself: 'Yeah, I can do this.' That moment of blissful ignorance before the gears shift and he becomes suddenly and sadly aware that he can not do this. Immediately aware, from the first gentle bob of the planet, that he is the most unable anyone has ever been at completing any task. Within ten seconds he is already grunting, eking out those short sharp breaths that are only heard when someone who never does anything athletic suddenly has to respond physically to something. It's the breathing you heard when the gifted and talented maths crew had to wrestle their rucksacks off the rugby lads before PE, or your dad's breath during that weird scuffle he had over a parking space once: soft, urgent panic.

It is then that Rob slides down the rope like an onion on a kebab skewer and suddenly we, his team, everyone, understands: not only will Rob not complete this task, but he may never make it further than the first step. This will be like watching a baby trying to ice skate.

"I can't get much purchase on it" is definitely a highlight here. I'm sure we can all agree that Rob saying, "I can't get much purchase on it," as he dangles, panting in the blackness, is a highlight of both the video and the year. It is also one of the best uses of the word purchase I've ever heard – a word normally reserved for particularly stubborn jars of Chicken Tonight, which takes on new levels of sincerity when used in reference to some spinning planets on the Crystal Maze. Rob here is trying to use technical jargon in a decidedly untechnical situation, which is basically the nerdiest thing you can do. It's up there with talking about "game theory" in reference to Skyrim.

I've always consoled myself with the idea that even if we totally fuck the planet, we'll have developed the technology to fly off into space before we run out of oxygen and all the mountains melt. I trusted NASA. Only, since I read that New York Magazine article about the end of the world – and bear in mind, we haven't even made it to Mars yet – I'm increasingly convinced that we might just do a Rob: reach out into the darkness, fingertips stretching, before gasping, "I can't get much purchase on it" and falling silent forever.

At this stage it is clear to everyone that Rob is so unbelievably shit at stepping from one planet to another one that the best option might be some full damage limitation: recalling him from the frontline entirely. Yes, despite literally only making it one planet along, we are already having very serious conversations about calling the whole thing off. His team-mates have switched from shouting "you can do this" to saying "maybe just come back" in increasingly alarmed tones. Rob is gabbling random "worriedabubbatouchadafloor" noises between breaths.

He wants to turn back; as soon as the idea is floated he jumps at the chance, nodding like a tired child who just wants to get back in the pushchair. He needs this to be over so much. Rob, a man who has just discovered he can't balance or take steps wider than half a metre on television, just wants it to end. So he admits defeat, accepts humiliation and, like Tarzan played by a CEX employee, begins to swing his way back home.

I think what makes this whole display so bleak is how humourless Rob finds it. You'd think that after a minute-and-a-half of swinging and slipping, he'd have let out a little chuckle. Just a little "I can't believe this!" Just a grin, or something. But he doesn't, and why? Because Rob is committing every ounce of his energy, concentration, mind, body and soul into the spinny planet thing. It's consuming him entirely. He is gripped by a genuine fear that he might fall into the void and be locked out of the Crystal Maze. Rob – like a ten-year-old being chased round LaserQuest – thinks this is real.

To make things worse, rather than proving a solution back to safety, his decision to turn around has only left him floundering on his doorstep. At this stage he is so out of methods for conquering the spinning planets, he has resorted to strutting around the rope like a mortally drunk bride-to-be trying to pole-dance in a Tiger Tiger. Prodding his toes out to the ledge like a man afraid of bridges, it is at this stage that the great revelation becomes clear: Rob, who had three minutes to try clearing five of these things, might not manage two.

As a viewer it probably kicks in around the 45-second mark, the realisation that this interminable, unbelievably bad performance – effectively the inverse of athleticism – actually is, somehow, going to get worse. Rob genuinely might be stuck in fake TV space forever, after failing to complete less than 20 percent of the task. This isn't falling at the last hurdle; this is wading through two rows of them before turning around and trying to drag them back to the start-line, only to break both your legs before you can get there.

Rob, circling, circling, the circles spinning faster and faster, toes jutting out towards the ledge, the seconds falling away from the clock. I believe Rob wants to die at this point. And I don't mean "die" in the universe of the show; I mean actually die. I think Rob wants his life to come to an end as an abbreviated way of guaranteeing he doesn't have to step across any more spinning planets, ever again. Then, with 14 seconds left, it finally happens. With a miserable plop he rolls off the planet and onto some crash mats covered in black fabric. He stares at the ceiling. "You alright, Rob?" come the voices from the other side of the set. He doesn't reply. He just breathes heavily and thinks about crying.

Sometimes it isn't the taking part that counts. I'd like to be generous and write something about the universality of trying and failing, or how "we've all been Rob trying to get back home", but I can't, because we haven't. Rob, the poor sod, is so cosmically rubbish, I actually can't relate. But perhaps this is the lesson to learn from Rob. None of us think we could be that incompetent, that totally incapable, until we are suddenly there, in a grey jumpsuit, trying to do it on national television. Maybe I can't relate because the thought of being Rob fills me with a terror so great I would throw myself off the proverbial spinning planet and touch the floor.

Think of him now and pray for us all. Floating through the void, panting in the blackness, reaching out and not getting much purchase.

@a_n_g_u_s