NBC has dropped reality TV fans into a brand-new game where X marks the spot. Blinded to where exactly in Europe they are, ten players must use every clue at their disposal to determine their location, otherwise they’re out. It’s a simple concept. It’s partially why Destination X is already captivating fans as NBC’s new summer series.
As players, tucked away in a luxury bus with blacked-out windows, travel to their new destination each round, Destination X becomes a twisted game of luck, trust, and knowledge. But it’s that “one and done” mentality that has fans already mumbling. When you’re selected to go into the Map Room, you have to rely on all that luck, trust, and knowledge and hope that your finger lands on the correct X, or you’re out.
How ‘Destination X’ Forces You To Trust Your Gut
With 10 players starting the game, host Jeffrey Dean Morgan welcomes them as they embark on an international adventure of a lifetime where reality television tropes, skills, and treachery are all combined. In the premiere episode, viewers learned just how cutthroat Destination X can get. The main goal of the game is to stay in the game. That means, the only way one can be eliminated is if they are sent to the Map Room and place their X the furthest distance away from the X. That means precision is key. And if, by chance, your instinct is off or you rely on the word of a rival, your game could be finished in a snap. Just ask former Big Brother winner and The Challenge alum, Josh Martinez.
To kick off the game, the starting roster of players only featured one reality TV alum. While fans know that The Bachelor and The Traitors star Peter Weber and Love Island alum JaNa Craig will be joining the bus later this season, the Big Brother winner was the only pre-established name. One would think that years of experience would be to his benefit, but, after speaking to Collider during his exit interview, he noted that he was even shocked to see how hard the other players were going right from the start. Between a brilliant alliance that set Mack Fitzgerald up as an early frontrunner and Rick Szabo downplaying his lawyer background as a bird watcher, Josh was in a league of gamers. This was not just a free trip to Europe. This was a business trip for a quarter of a million dollars.
First, Mack was able to get Ally Bross the luggage tag challenge victory, earning them both their first clue. Then, she helped lead her team to earning four coins to send four players from the losing team into the Map Room. With every player having a limited scope of knowledge of the clues, how they opted to share the information with the other players would dictate how those sent to the Map Room would decide where to place their X. So, even with the knowledge he had, Jonah Evarts was convinced their Destination X was Milan rather than all signs pointing to Rome. Rick picked up on that false locale, passed it off to Josh before his trip to the Map Room, and the reality star ended up trusting a stranger over his gut. And thus, one bad guess, and he’s gone.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan Gives Thrilling ‘Destination X’ Bus Tour — Blacked-Out Windows, Zero Privacy, Total Chaos [Exclusive]
“Play nice, you turkeys.”
‘Destination X’ Rightly Keeps Viewers in the Dark
Destination X is more than just a game about a bad guess. It’s much more complicated than that. It takes social skills to form alliances to keep your name out of the Map Room. It requires years of learning and comprehending geography, history, and culture. You must pay attention to everything. If you don’t have the chance to be out on the ground in the tiny Italian village, you have to analyze those coins as you’re battling it out in that challenge in hopes that you pick up on something so you’re not in the dark should you go to the Map Room. Josh played a safe game. Rather than using his reality celebrity status to make a scene at the start, he played like a rookie. A move he regrets. But his elimination proves that Destination X can knock out the best of them.
The fun of Destination X is we, as viewers, get to play along with the players on the bus. Like the players on the bus, until their VR goggles reveal reality, we know as little as they do. We’re in the dark. While we’re physically not there with them, we are playing as if we are. It’s thrilling to go along on the journey to see if we would fair well or if we would be out of our league, and off the bus. With the first season taking players on a tour of Europe, it’s a perfect game board because there are geographical and architectural similarities between locations that it’s never a slam dunk of identifying “Destination X” off the bat. Just like the players in the game, we were given enough information that should have told us they were in Rome, so did we? I sure did! Calling it now: this is the best reality guessing game since The Masked Singer and Claim to Fame!
