The BBC has just launched a brand-new reality show that’s surprisingly addictive.
Destination X combines the intrepid adventure of Race Across the World with the treachery and deception of The Traitors, as contestants travel on a bus with blacked-out windows to unknown destinations in Europe as they are drip-fed clues along the way.
While the show’s start is a tad corny, there are some bombshell reveals that make you realise how much you should be paying attention to every frame. After all, the series encourages viewers to play along at home by placing their own ‘X’ on a virtual map.
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At the end of each episode, Rob walks the audience through the more obvious clues that dropped in each episode to answer the question: “Where the X am I?!”. However, there are others that you may have missed.
After watching the first two episodes of the show (which are now available to stream on BBC iPlayer), here are the key things that you should be paying attention to going forward.
Spoilers for episodes 1 and 2 of Destination X below
Rob has taken inspiration from The Traitors host Claudia Winkleman with his presenting style, by dropping subtle hints in plain sight about the game.
In episode one, when Rob saw the buses, he said the words: “I fell in love with these as soon as I saw them”. As shown by the replay, he pronounces “I fell” more like “Eiffel”, the namesake of the iconic tower in Paris.
But it’s not just when Rob is talking directly to the contestants. In a voiceover, he discussed how the place they’re going to was one of the first locations in the world to adopt street lighting, and Paris is known as the City of Lights.
You should especially pay attention to Rob’s final tease for the next episode. At the end of episode one, he discusses how you can “cut the air with a small, multifunction penknife”. Or, as it’s more commonly known, a Swiss Army Knife – a clue to the country of episode two.
BBC
Colour and symbol representation
In episode two, the importance of colour was very clear in multiple clues.
For example, when the windows cleared for the contestants on the bus, we saw a highway van with a billboard on the side. While the group correctly identified that +41 was a specific phone number country code, they didn’t spot that the advert itself was red and white – IE, the colours of the flag of Switzerland.
During the lake task, the paddleboarder was correctly identified as wearing lederhosen. But again, he was in a red and white checked shirt. In addition, while we were told that the boat had the letters of the surrounding countries printed on it, Rob didn’t mention what they were printed on – a white flag. The common symbol of neutrality for which Switzerland is known.
Rob Brydon also revealed on Reddit that his outfits even have small clues, with one eagle-eyed Redditor spotting a fleur-de-lys lapel pin in episode one. You can even see in this clip that one set of twins is wearing a beret, while another is wearing a polka dot scarf, which could be linked to the Tour de France.
Landmarks and famous spots
In the first two episodes, Destination X has been a famous location, rather than a random spot on the map. While this could change in future episodes, this may help you to narrow down exactly where in the country you could be, rather than blindly guessing somewhere random (as I did).
For example, when I’d sussed out that the country was Switzerland in episode two, I even mentioned the famous Matterhorn as one of the few things I knew about the country, despite not getting the anagram or the letters in the map.
The clues for the final location are a lot more obscure, and the direction of travel is meant to mislead – during the Switzerland leg, the bus briefly dipped into Italy to throw off contestants. So, once you’re set on the country, try to think of famous cities and places of interest within in, which will help your chances of spotting exact places teased within tasks.
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