Race Across The World
BBC2, Sundays, 8pm
Just when you thought there aren’t any exciting new TV formats left, along comes one that sneaks into the schedule of a minority channel (well, BBC2), and becomes a proper word-of-mouth phenomenon. I speak, of course, of Race Across The World, whose first series last year started with a respectable 1.5million viewers, but grew steadily until over 3.5million watched the final. The perfectly simple format sees five pairs of real people competing to reach an exotic destination with no mobile phones or tech of any kind, and just a limited cash budget to keep them going. This time, they’re starting in Mexico City and must make their way to the most southerly city in the world, Ushuaia in Argentina.
As becomes clear from the opening episode, the producers have cast an instantly gripping bunch. There’s Jo, who’s in her fifties, and her son Sam, 19, with ADHD; couple Michael and Shuntelle who met on Tinder; comically accident-prone uncle and nephew Emon and Jamiu; married couple Jen and Rob, who are both deeply affected by Rob’s hearing loss, and most intriguing of all (so far), siblings Dom, 22, and Lizzie, 21, who have drifted apart and can now barely look each other in the eye, which isn’t ideal when they have to spend the next two months together. Their volatile dialogue is as gripping as any TV drama –“Let me be angry sometimes!” Lizzie tells Dom at one point. Sure, there are moments when the show feels a tad contrived – how do they make sure the five duos don’t all go off in exactly the same direction, for example? But mostly, it’s a massively engaging insight into the human condition.