Destination X - 7&8 Spoilers

Destination X ground inexorably onwards and at least we had two eliminations this week. If you’ve been watching the show you’ll know that it was in episode five last week that we saw for the first time one of the contestants – Pilot Josh – winning an advantage that could have affected the elimination in that show – the option to move one of his opponents’ x 250km further from the destination. As it happened it still didn’t get that contestant eliminated, and I’m glad about this. I don’t want to see someone whose X was no furthest from the destination being eliminated.

So after an ineffectual episode 6 which saw our jolly travellers messing about in Venice we’re onto episodes 7 and 8. I’ll be honest, while I do find some of the personalities on the bus interesting, I did find some of the tensions which seemed to come out on the bus in the early parts of episode 7 to be a little tedious. Suddenly out of seemingly nowhere we had marketing Saskia taking marathon Nick to task and accusing him of continually whining about how much he is hating the experience. This was a little naughty of the producers, since we, the audience, had not been show any instance of Nick doing this previously. Well, there we are.

The early cluefest provided as our intrepid half dozen were pulled off the bus by fake police made me convinced Pula in Croatia was the destination. Namely a photo of a dalmatian dog, a wanted poster showing Nikola Tesla and a cryptic crossword clue calling for an anagram of Paul.

The contestants got to play for this episode’s sneaky advantage. Basically they were taken to a dockyard at nighttime, where cranes lit up in coloured lights in sequence in a way rather reminiscent of 70’s/80s electronic Simon game. I got rather good at that. So I did pretty well. The game involved watching the sequence ad identifying a given colour – eg – which came 8^th in the sequence? Get it wrong and lose a life.

Sergeant Claire won and was given the option of saving herself and two teammates from the map room. Saving Nuclear Judith and Taxi Daren left Marathon Nick, Marketing Saskia and Pilot Josh to face the Map Room. Smart cookie Marketing Saskia told Pilot Josh it had to be Pula. Marathon Nick knew it had to be Pula, but just couldn’t find it on the map. Zbogom Nick.

So to episode 8. Now, I’ll be honest, I could see the point of the challenge, which involved balancing a football on a stick to win the chance to look at a clue. I just couldn’t see why the team had to be taken to a football pitch in Piran in Slovenia to do it. Likewise, the team had to elect one person to receive a clue, and they plumped for good old Taxi Daren. Who got to look out over the beautiful town of Piran. Why? To me there was no point in the clue whatsoever, other than giving the viewers at home a beautiful scene to look at. Speaking of challenges, in the next contestants had to play on behalf of another contestant. They had to kayak out into a lake, pick up blocks, bring them back and construct a tower. Highest would win. Dotted around the lake were clues, and it was two of these – one combining the symbol for pi and the word as, the other hinting at an anagram of the Spanish word pais, together with the tower they were building and the emphasis on balance that gave me Pisa.

Okay, but the challenge to me had just a whiff of something not quite kosher. We saw Nuclear Judith not only fail to pick up Marketing Saskia’s paddle to help her when she dropped it in the lake but seemingly push it further away, and then we saw her topple her own tower too, since she was representing Saskia. Which did seem a little out of character. Was there, perhaps an off camera member of the production team egging her on as it would make better telly?

Whatever the case, the only person she unintentionally sabotaged was her ally, sergeant Claire. Despite getting to share winner Daren’s clue, showing a lady in classic – holding up the leaning tower of Pisa - pose neither she nor Daren got it. Judith had found a ticket back in Piran for a match against San Marino, and so pushed the San Marino destination as hard as she could. Which was a little daft – the clues are not that simple to be fair. Which meant that she and Judith both plumped for the tiny republic, with Claire being a bare kilometre further away from Pisa that Judith. Daren, bless his cotton socks, couldn’t find San Marino so opted for a pin the tail on the donkey approach and seemed to stick his X in the middle of Italy. Which all goes to show that sometimes, knowing a little is more dangerous than not having a clue.

Semi final next time, and presumably the final after that. Great – the show has not outstayed its welcome.