Imagine being stuck on a blacked-out bus hurtling across Europe, your only task to figure out precisely where you are. That’s the slightly bonkers, potentially entertaining setup for NBC’s new competition series, “Destination X,” hosted by Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Premiering Monday, May 27th at 10:00 PM ET/PT (streaming the next day on Peacock), “Destination X” pits twelve contestants against each other in a high-stakes geographical guessing game. They’ll travel across the continent, completely unaware of their location, with $250,000 waiting for the person who can pinpoint the final “Destination X.” Think “The Amazing Race” meets getting deliberately lost by your GPS.
The core gameplay involves the contestants stepping off the bus each week to visit local spots and tackle challenges designed to give them clues – some helpful, some misleading – about their whereabouts. Success requires a blend of geographical knowledge, historical awareness, pop culture recall, and plain old observation skills. At the end of each leg, they enter the “Map Room” to place a pin where they believe they are. The contestant whose guess is furthest from the actual location gets the boot.
Adding a familiar, perhaps slightly calculated, element to the mix are reality TV veterans JaNa Craig (“Love Island”) and Peter Weber (“The Bachelor,” “The Traitors”). They join ten other hopefuls: Biggy Bailey, Ally Bross, Kim Conner, Shayne Cureton, Jonah Evarts, Mack Fitzgerald, Tai Lowry, Josh Martinez, Rachel Rossette, and Rick Szabo. It will be interesting to see if Weber and Craig’s experience with reality formats gives them an edge or makes them targets.
For those eager for an early look, NBC plans a special sneak peek after the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, May 3rd, around 8:00 PM ET (check local times). The show itself is based on a Belgian format and comes from producers Twofour and Universal Television Alternative Studio, with Morgan joining Andy Cadman, Emanuel Vanderjeudg, Dan Adamson, David Clews, and Shireen Abbott as executive producers. Can a show about being lost find its audience? We’ll find out starting May 27th.
