It’s been tipped to rival The Traitors, and at least on paper, Destination X has all the potential. It’s a cocktail of Claudia Winkleman’s cloak-and-dagger reality TV series and Race Across the World — currently the two brightest jewels in the BBC’s crown.
Like many of the most promising formats before it, Destination X has already been a huge hit internationally. It first launched in Belgium, and a US version just aired with a cast featuring a mix of ‘regular people’ and celebrities I’ve never heard of, hosted by a smouldering The Walking Dead star, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Rob Brydon takes the reins in the UK version – easily the most popular star in the most popular show on British television since Only Fools and Horses, Gavin and Stacey.
Needless to say, expectations have been high — but have they been met?
Not quite. At least not yet. I’ve seen the first three episodes, and while the start is rougher than an eight-hour delay at Euston in a heatwave – only to find you’re stuck on a train with Nigel Farage – it does start to show signs of promise.
The concept is definitely intriguing, but ultimately far too convoluted in practice. Thirteen contestants begin the journey of their lives at an unknown airport before boarding a train to Destination X – an undisclosed location that could be anywhere in Europe.
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They have no idea which direction they’re heading. They’re only allowed to look out the windows for brief moments and must rely on cryptic clues to uncover where they are and where they could be going.
At each checkpoint, the train stops and the cast must individually guess their current location. The one furthest from the truth is immediately booted off the train to fend for themselves in the middle of nowhere. At least, that’s how it’s presented – if only it were true, there might actually be some jeopardy.
Episode one falls flat. The cast isn’t interesting enough to draw viewers in, and the game feels painfully muddled – reminiscent of ITV’s most expensive flop, The Genius Game with David Tennant, which proved far too clever for its own good and well beyond the grasp of the average viewer.
Destination X isn’t quite as much of a misfire – it doesn’t require a literal genius to play or enjoy – but it does fall into the same trap.
Viewers are encouraged to play along via a QR code, guessing where the cast is with just as little information. Since I watched the show before its official release, I couldn’t try the interactive features, but I doubt they resolve Destination X’s biggest issue: when it comes to reality TV, most viewers don’t want to work too hard. I certainly don’t.
Netflix openly designs shows for doom-scrolling. In contrast, Destination X throws out the modern television rulebook. While that’s bold, I’m not convinced it will pay off, especially when the game takes far too long to get going.
Once it does, though, things improve significantly. The opening episode has almost no tension. The contestants all get along so well, it feels like they’ve been inducted into a friendly cult.
One even leaves early without so much as a goodbye – they insist they’ve had a great time and simply vanish, like it’s no big deal. In an episode where little else happens, the show misses an opportunity to at least dramatise its one potential bombshell.
That changes later in the series. Reality eventually kicks in: there’s £100,000 on the line, and only one person can win it. After initially promising to be truthful and work together, cracks begin to form. The team spirit fades, and suddenly, there’s a game worth watching.
Once the niceties are thrown out of the blacked-out windows, the lies begin, trust breaks down, and the show finally heads in the right direction.
But the best reality TV lives and dies by its casting, and Destination X lacks standout personalities. One contestant brags about running a marathon in every country in the world; another is a 28-year-old nuclear engineer.
The only instantly likeable figure is London taxi driver and devoted family man, Daren. Others eventually come into their own, but it takes more time than I fear most viewers will allow before tuning out.
The further down the tracks we go, the more promise the format shows. Tears are shed, stakes rise, the twists are meaty, there’s a rug pull that’s genuinely quite shocking, and by episode three, my interest had definitely piqued.
Hopefully, enough viewers stay on board long enough to feel the same.
Destination X airs Wednesdays and Thursdays on BBC One and is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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