‘Destination X’ Boss Shares Just How Hard It Was to Keep Those Contestants in the Dark
If you are a longtime fan of reality TV competitions who is looking for a new format to enjoy, then “Destination X” marks the spot. The social strategy show combines geography skills, pop culture knowledge and classic manipulation tactics to give viewers a cross-continent trek that is unlike any other.
Each week, the contestants must battle it out to earn clues about their bus’ whereabouts, culminating with the farthest-off guess being eliminated. Ahead of the Season 1 finale on Tuesday, showrunner Andy Cadman opened up to TheWrap about the logistics of keeping their 12 contestants in the dark as they made their way across Europe, what changes he’d make if given another season and even shared an update on ““Love Island Games” Season 2.
“I’m going to be honest, it was really hard. Them knowing where the sun was rising and setting, and knowing which direction they were going in. Some things were just really, really difficult to avoid,” he said of the show’s central premise. “But we drove in circles, we turned the bus around, we did everything we could to discombobulate them, to distract them, but stopping them from knowing where they were was just a massive challenge. Like, at some point, obviously, they have to get off the bus. We had to let them get off the bus to eat dinner, so we created safe zones where they could get off the bus but couldn’t see where they were and could only see sky.”
“There were so many logistical, off-screen issues to deal with, so, yeah, it was incredibly challenging. And there was a lot of time they spent in blindfolds and goggles,” Cadman added.“It’s so odd these days. It’s so difficult to get anything to land and to launch on linear, it’s just a hard landscape. So I was just really, really pleased and relieved, of course, just really gratified that everybody’s hard work paid off in the end.”
Indeed, “Destination X” scored some impressive ratings when it first premiered back in May. Now, the Final 3 — Biggy Bailey, Rick Szabo and “The Bachelor”/pilot Peter Weber — must race across London to win the grand finale’s $250,000 prize.
“The cast was great. When we put the show together in post, we felt like we found something,” the EP shared. “We were all just so excited by the prospect when we started out on the journey, and then it was unbelievably difficult to make. It was a lot of fun in the end and now to see that people like it is wonderful.”
Jeffrey Dean Morgan in “Destination X.” (Sean Gleason/NBC)
While Weber entered the game as a midseason twist with “Love Island USA” star JaNa Craig, Bailey and Szabo have been two of the top contenders all season long. In fact, the Episode 4 twist that forced Bailey to actively trick one of his fellow competitors into guessing an entirely incorrect country wound up being a highlight for Cadman.
“That was probably my favorite moment of the season, being able to pull a twist like that and completely turn the game on its head. Really nerve-wracking as a team to embark on something like that,” he explained. “We thought Biggy was great, he was just the perfect person to entrust with that mission, as it were. Very scary. But it’s the sort of thing that in a Season 2, I think you do again, more of those sorts of things. I think it really transformed the show from being just about geography to being about, well, ‘How do I interact with the other people on the bus? How do I make sure that they know less than me? How do I mislead them in a way that’s going to benefit me?’ And all of that stuff is super fun.”
“I had no idea how much people would study before they came to the show. The contestants were so smart and they were so competitive that I just hadn’t seen that coming, they were amazing. I think in Season 2, we would definitely want to up the ante. We would want to make it harder, because the contestants come into it ready to go, they know a lot. We would want to do more twists and turns,” Cadman continued. “I think Jeffrey [Dean Morgan] is such an incredible games master, and he did such a great job of owning the way the show twists and turns. Just flipping the script on the contestants is one of my favorite things to do when I’m making shows; put people in a situation where whatever they do, they’re kind of damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Putting people into those situations is what I enjoy doing the most, and I think I found a kindred spirit in Jeffrey, who was always willing to jump into that with us and run with it.”
So where in the world could a potential second season take place?
“I haven’t started on Season 2 yet, so it can’t possibly be a spoiler … but I kind of love the creepy,” the showrunner teased. “I was obsessed with Venice because it was so creepy. I loved that episode because it was dark and moody and scary in a way. I loved the castle, the haunted castle, so more haunted places. I’ve got a bunch of places in mind, not just my holiday destinations.”
And while we await a Season 2 order for this show, another of Cadman’s series has already been greenlit for a sophomore season on Peacock: “Love Island Games.”
“I was literally just planning, plotting the first week. I’m here sat in London on my own, just going, ‘How are we going to throw everything up in the air for ‘Games’ Season 2?’ It’s going to be wild. Like, ‘Games’ Season 1 was pretty wild. How do we really mess with them? Season 2 is going to be more of the same,” Cadman concluded. “Ben [Thursby] is the other showrunner with me, and between us, we’ve got some great stuff coming up. Obviously, the last two years for ‘Love Island USA’ have just been massive. So, we’re hoping to be able to get some familiar faces, hopefully some recent familiar faces on there that people are going to be excited to see.”
“Destination X” airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock.
The post ‘Destination X’ Boss Shares Just How Hard It Was to Keep Those Contestants in the Dark appeared first on TheWrap.
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