Proof we can’t get enough of competitive reality shows

Fronted by Rob Brydon and nailing a winning combo of ‘The Traitors’ and ‘Race Across the World’, BBC’s ‘Destination X’ makes for perfect midweek viewing, writes Helen Coffey

- Helen Coffey

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