Take the exhilarating, continent-sweeping travel of Race Across the World, mix it with the strategic gameplay and savage backstabbing of The Traitors, add in a healthy dollop of interactive mystery solving, and what have you got? Destination X, the BBC’s new competitive reality show that has all the hallmarks of a smash hit destined for multiple series.
The concept, first dreamt up in Belgium and already exported to the US, is simple. Players are shuttled about on a souped-up bus with blacked-out windows and given clues at various intervals to point them in the direction of their next destination: destination “X”. They must guess where they are on a digital map at each stop, and whoever’s furthest off the mark is sent packing with immediate effect. The remaining players aren’t told how near – or far – their estimates were before their transport trundles off once more. At the end of all this, one winner will take home a prize pot of £100,000.
It's a compelling format, not least because it’s fronted by comedian Rob Brydon, he of Gavin and Stacey and The Trip fame. Deploying a balance of warmth and avuncular charm to keep the show (literally) on the road, he is to Destination X what Claudia Winkleman is to The Traitors – a firm hand on the tiller with just enough quirky wit to keep things interesting.
This first series takes place in Europe, with the contestants initially dropped off in Baden-Baden, Germany, at a fake airport terminal. Here we meet our competitors, a broad spectrum of people cast, in some cases, for their more obvious transferable skills. There’s Nick, for example, an alarmingly competitive endurance athlete; Josh, the cool, calm and collected pilot; Daren, the London cabbie with a heart of gold; Claire, the quick-thinking retired police detective… You get the picture.
A series of pitstops furnished with clues and escape room-type logic problems, some more fiendish than others, follows, alongside a veritable school of red herrings thrown in to intentionally bamboozle.
Amid gorgeous, colour-saturated shots of European vistas, the show’s real strength is the play-at-home element. Viewers have access to the same clues as players (though with the advantage of seeing all of them – the contestants sometimes do not) and are encouraged to make their own “Destination X” guess at the end of each episode on the BBC website ahead of the big reveal.
Some contestants are more gormless – sorry, less knowledgeable – than others, making it particularly gratifying when you figure out a piece of the puzzle that has baffled everyone else. I was far too pleased with myself when I worked out with absolute certainty where Destination X was in episode two – though, as a former travel editor, I was more frequently embarrassed by my galling lack of cartographical knowledge.
Interactivity aside, the show’s other captivating aspect is the shifting group dynamic as alliances are formed and discarded. What starts as one big, happy family swiftly plunges into Lord of the Flies territory, betrayal and backstabbing being very much incentivised by the show’s format. It’s curiously satisfying to watch people swearing blind they would never engage in any form of skullduggery one minute before double-crossing their peers the next. (“My loyalty is to you lot, we’ve bonded,” a misty-eyed Daren says at one point, oblivious to the fact that his fellow travellers have done their level best to screw him over. Bless.)
Admittedly, it’s not quite got the addictive vindictiveness of The Traitors, nor the sumptuous wanderlust inspo of Race Across the World. Nevertheless, with its combination of head-scratching puzzles, conniving contestants and camera-friendly landscapes, Destination X undeniably has the X factor – an ideal bit of midweek telly that feels sure to go the distance.
