I saw the Guardian 1 star review and got curious. Watched the first test as it seemed the next contestants were about to repeat the same test I thought "are you serious?" Well their test was slightly different and was edited shorter.
This show has some of the best cinematography in a reality show. I think they're even using anamorphic lenses. Plus drone shots and slick editing. They're going for the 007 movie vibe, which is a little counterintuitive for a reality show. The USP of a reality show is it feels live and rough. This doesn't. It feels staged like an unrehearsed movie.
Its a mashup of various successful shows. So we have teams of pairs travelling across the world. But they're introduced slowly, like the Alone series (not all in the first episode). Brian Cox plays a kind of Bond villain Alan Sugar.
Except he comes across as a friendly uncle who thinks he's being evil. Except he's helping the contestants. Is he against them or not? That bit seems confused.
The tasks are right out of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? And ABC multiple choice without any friends to call. Every single task... so yeah it does get very repetitive. Once they find the case which contains the question it generally feels like an anti climax. And many of the questions are very easy.
The main problem is a basic lack of tension or intrigue. The contestants are not competing against each other. Instead each team is running their own quest to win the £1m. Therefore cutting between them has no meaning other than a way to stop the audience getting bored.
Cox is completely detached from the game and just supplies his robotic instructions and clues. Probably recorded completely separately. Unlike say Sugar in the Apprentice or the guy who used to present The Crystal Maze. They're part of the game and that adds to the fun, the intrigue and the tension.
They surely missed an opportunity to introduce some 007 intrigue between teams, by having them compete for the big prize conducting some Bond style espionage against each other.
As it is, it's just about entertaining enough to keep one's interest in an undemanding way, for a few hours casual viewing.
I just wonder how contrived the whole thing is. What if all the contestants got the questions wrong early? End of show. Maybe that's why the questions are so easy.
A lot of the stunts are far too dangerous for ordinary folks to take on without professional supervision. But that stuff gets edited out to give you them impression a couple ordinary blokes are suddenly expert rock climbers. In one task involving a cable car they don't show the contestant getting a safety cable attached to him, but you can see it in the wide shot. The editing implies they're left to complete the tasks alone.
Then there's convenient boatmen and taxi drivers who happen to be up for helping them out. There's time challenges which nobody ever fails.
It does have potential but they should rework the format.
