007 Road to a Million is a British reality series released on Prime Video on November 10, 2023. It is directed by Julian Jones and produced by 72 Films and MGM Alternative in collaboration with James Bond producers. Brian Cox acts as the host/controller of the show. There are eight episodes with a runtime of about 40-60 minutes.
The contestants featured in the show include Josh Ali, Kamara Davis, Joey Bone, James Bone, Nick Ashton-Jones, Keith Curtis, Colin Barnes, Daniel Fenner, Jenny Dorward, Beth Foxwell, Daniella Gualtieri, Grace Nicoll, James O’Neil, Sam O’Neil, Tanaka Nyoni, James, Saiqa Pirmohamed, and Sana Pirmohamed.
In this show, nine pairs of everyday people are unleashed on an epic adventure through a series of James Bond-inspired challenges, to find questions hidden around the world, all for a shot at winning a life-changing £1,000,000 prize.
007 Road to a Million Review
It starts with the appearance of Brian Cox, who will be leading or even misleading the nine duos throughout the show. The premise is that each pair has a chance to win a million euros by finding ten questions, hidden in different countries. The quest is to find those questions (usually in the shape of a briefcase with a screen and buzzers inside), by climbing mountains, diving underwater or even walking on a running train. Choosing the right answers, they clear one level and move on to the next one.
In the first episode, we meet James and Joey Bone, the two brothers looking for an adventure and earning some money on the side. They are left in the middle of nowhere of the Scottish Highlands with a red telephone booth nearby. Soon the phone starts to ring and Brian Cox’s voice comes out from the other side. He hints to them that to win 5000 pounds they cross the hills and find the briefcase, hidden in a loch somewhere. The duo find a silver suitcase in the middle of the water, chained to some weights.
Once they bring it out, the briefcase contains a screen and three smoke cans labelled – A, B and C inside. A question appears on the screen along with Cox’s voice reiterating it loudly. He informs how these highlands were where the remains of 40 Scottish Kings were buried. Among them, one King was immortalised by Shakespeare through his work.
They were given three choices – A) Hamlet, B) Richard, the Third and C) Macbeth. They had to choose the right option and open the can with the same letter choice. If the option was right, green smoke would come out & if wrong then red would come out and they would be out of the game, instantly. Similarly, eight other pairs of teams were introduced at different locations in Scotland. They consisted of a couple, military nurses, father & son, sisters, friends, colleagues etc. Each had to seek out the briefcase and answer a question related to the location they were at.
The trivia questions given to the contestants aren’t that hard or mind-bending if you have a bit of knowledge about a variety of things, or can jot the dots from whatever information is presented to you. The main challenge is finding the briefcase and for that, they travel through various countries like Chile, Italy, Jamaica, Brazil, Turkey, Switzerland etc. It’s part treasure hunt, where they might have to run through the desert, hike rocky mountains or walk on high-rise cranes, and face-off with a boa python or even alligators, to secure the bag. Then comes the trivia part, where they have to wrack their brains to guess the right answer.
Now if you question, what does it have to do with the James Bond series? Then that’s what challenges your knowledge of the popular series. If you look carefully, each level is based on the missions that Bond goes on and original props like the cars he drove, outfits, wines, tools etc are used in the challenges. It’s like easter eggs hidden in each given task and gives the viewers a chance to engage and seek them out.
What I liked about the show is how the contestants aren’t pitted against each other, in fact, the teams never interact with each other. According to their relationship, occupation and personality, the challenges are moulded to test their limits. They are not generic tasks, one-size-fits-all all, but carefully designed to push each team’s personal boundaries and whether they overcome it or not. Aside from the money, the challenges encourage teamwork and often bring the duo closer. Even the teams expressed gratitude because these large-scale adventures are not something that an ordinary person would be able to experience.
Overall, it’s a decent reality competition show where the journey is more interesting than the end destination. Although the contestants were fairly courageous in finding the questions, it might make viewers a bit frustrated when they can’t figure out simple questions that they might have learnt in school. Other than that, Brian Cox does take a simple show up a notch with his dramatic comments but, doesn’t really play the role of ‘villain’ as he had promised at the start. If anything, he is like a sarcastic mastermind who wants you to win but doesn’t show it openly.
Rating: 3/5
007 Road to a Million is available for streaming on Prime Video.
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