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007 Road to a Million is a new 8-part adventure gameshow on Prime Video, in which Brian Cox (the good one) sits in his lair, watching every contestant on a bank of TV monitors.
The premise is that it’s all about putting people into a James Bond adventure. Will they rise to the challenge, or fail?
There are 9 pairs of people, a total of £9m, so a prize of £1m apiece. 10 questions have been placed around the world. Find them, answer them, and win as much cash as possible. This reminded me a bit of Ultra Quiz, in 1983. That seemed ace, although somehow, I don’t recall watching further series. I do, however, remember some globetrotting being involved, before eveyone returned to the studio for a final episode with question rounds.
The only one standing in their way, technically, is Brian Cox (Churchill, The Veteran), although he never physically follows them.
Level 1 begins in the Scottish Highlands, with the Bone brothers from South London… sorry, Sarf Laarndon. However, they don’t just hand the questions to you. The first one is for £5000, and they have to climb a rocky mountain and find it on the other side, not that it’s easy to find…
Similarly, the next couple are two young ladies, Sana and Saiqa, who have to find a large loch. Okay, the loch is easy, but where’s the question? I’m aware that’s another question, but anyway.
The questions come as multiple choice with three answers, but I can’t give out even the details of one of them, lest Brian Cox turn up at my house and shout at me 😉
If they get it right, then they go on to £10k, £25K, £50k and so on. Get it right, and bank the money. Get it wrong and, well…
Now, I thought each episode would feature one couple, but no, it swaps between them. I’d rather have stayed with one couple per show. Then again, there’s eight episodes, and when a couple gets a question wrong, that’s the end of the line for them. This can also be the case if they don’t get to a question in the alloted timeframe.
What I can be sure about, is that these contestants are a damn sight more learned than I am, but then when people appear on The Chase, the’re advised to learn about Kings and Queens, etc, and that’s also part of what comes up here.
However, and very annoyingly, sometimes, it gets to the end of the episode – and about to reveal whether a constestant has guessed right between A, B or C, and then… holds it over until the next episode. I get WHY they do it, but it’s like clickbait, and is just irritating.
So far, I’ve seen two episodes where they visit the Scottish Highlands and Italy, for both Venice and Naples, and it’s fun, in part – despite the problem listed in the last paragraph, but I’m not sure whether I’d stick it out for the full series.
However, it’s clear that for any couples who progress through enough questions, they’ll then fly those contestants from Scotland to Italy, and so on. They’re not going to make individual, unnecessary trips. They’ve also got to eat and sleep along the way, so if a couple have to travel 8 miles from one question to the next, across the Highlands, I doubt the programme makers will make them walk all that way in the elements.
As for the 007 link, I guess this is connected to the globetrotting side of it, since none of the contestants are wooing any beautiful ladies, nor pushing bad guys off the top of buildings, but then hearing a pre-recorded voice from Brian Cox asking questions feels more like something from the Mission Impossible movies.
UPDATE: I did later skip through some episodes, including the finale, and saw the James Bond connections, but to make it sound like you were going on a ‘James Bond adventure’ was a bit of a stretch.
Thanks to our friends at Prime Video for the screener prior to broadcast.
007 Road to a Million is on Prime Video from today. All episodes are available on day one.
NOTE:
Trailer posted November 5th 0:30
Updated with spoiler-free review of episodes 1 and 2: November 10th 0:01am
Cert: 
Running time: 45-60 minutes per episode (8 episodes)
Release date: November 10th 2023
Studio: Prime Video
Format: 2.39:1
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.