There are two IP-extending competition shows racing for your attention. Which one should you watch? Liam Maguren puts them head-to-head.
007: Road to a Million
Squid Game: The Challenge - Season 1
Prime Video and Netflix both have a new competition show based heavily around juggernaut IP. Hosted by Brian Cox, Prime Video’s 007: Road to a Million follows nine couples tasked with completing James Bond-inspired missions. Mimicking the South Korean phenomenon, Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge features 456 players and $4.56 million up for grabs.
In the spirit of competition, let’s see how these shows stack up against each other.
Round 1: The Prize
In Road to a Million, the nine pairs of players have a chance to win up to £1,000,000 each. Rather than competing with each other, the couples climb their own Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-style cash tier ladder. The first mission is worth £5,000, the second £10,000, the third £25,000 etc. Fail a mission and your run as a Bond-wannabe is over.
Theoretically, the show could end up dishing out £9,000,000 (or £0). That’s tremendously unlikely, though. What this does mean, however, is that most of the contestants will walk away with something, and even if it doesn’t make them a millionaire, it’s always heartwarming to see everyday people bouncing for joy at scoring themselves a few grand.
Compare that to The Challenge‘s approach. Of the 456 competitors, only a few will score the cash—albeit, a staggering amount of it, with each elimination adding $10,000 to the pot. The vast majority will take home an ice-cold can of diddly squat.
You could argue that all these participants/super-fans will walk away with a primo experience simulating the show they love. But to that point, the Road to a Million contestants are also rewarded with a globe-trotting holiday. I’d take Venice over a Squid Game amusement park.
The Challenge may end up dishing out the biggest single cash payout, but bigger isn’t always better, and it’s easy to forget how big the pot gets when survival takes top priority. By spreading the winnings, Road to a Million delivers a prize system that feels more rewarding to watch on an ep-by-ep basis.
Round 1 winner: Road to a Million
Round 2: The Production
Road to a Million certainly looks like a million bucks (and, thanks to the licenced music, sounds like a million Bonds). Contestants get to globe-trot to recognisable locales like Ponte Madonna della Stella, which featured in the early set piece in No Time to Die, and take the wheel of some iconic cars like the green Jaguar XKR convertible, driven by henchman Zao in Die Another Day.
If you’re impressed by my 007 knowledge, don’t be. I learned all this via Prime Video’s X-Ray function which pops up when the video’s paused, giving you names of the cast in the current scene and nifty factoids. If you want to know how a boa constrictor challenge relates to the Bond franchise, it’s right there for you to find out, but if you don’t, the show won’t stop to force it down your throat—and that’s greatly appreciated.
Admittedly, Brian Cox makes for an odd choice to host the series, given he hasn’t starred in any of the Bond films. Some Succession fans will want him to go full Logan Roy on these economic units trying to win his money, but he’s fairly low-key in this. Being classically trained and proudly Scottish does help evoke the suave spirit of Sean Connery but it’s painfully clear they shot all his moments separate from the “missions” he supposedly dictates.
There’s no such issue with The Challenge, mainly because the “hosts” are little more than a disembodied voice and a masked army of silent assistants. It’s a flawless representation of the show, as is the rest of the production. Cherish the moment where the players first nerd-out at the accurately-reconstructed prison encampment they’re forced to sleep in.
Round 2 winner: The Challenge
Round 3: The Challenges
Road to a Million could be considered an elevated Amazing Race. Contestants receive a message with some vague instructions on where to go and must traverse over mountain / crowded streets / the Amazon River to get to where they think they have to go.
If they find the location within the time limit, they must then answer a multi-choice question. Sometimes, it’s brutal trivia like, “Who attempted to invade The Highlands in 84AD?” Other times, it’s a Fear Factor challenge, like measuring the weight of a real-life tarantula.
Every couple gets their own set of instructions and questions, pumping the show with a consistent sense of variety, even if the obstacles aren’t all that original. The Challenge gets a bit more out of its games by doing the opposite; everyone competes in the same game a la Takeshi’s Castle, but each game feels unique.
Obviously, some games are ripped wholesale from the show, like the iconic Red Light, Green Light. However, as fans of the show will know, some of those games are downright bullshit, so The Challenge reduces the “dumb luck” factor with brutal player-based choices and more balanced challenges that keep to the base show’s childhood-game-made-deadly setup (like a large-scale game of Battleship).
The Challenge also mirrors the source show’s tribalistic conflicts via Big Brother-style social proddings, with the first episode pulling two strangers aside and giving them the power to either gift a stranger with an advantage or ruin them with elimination. It adds to the show’s tools for creating tension, and even though no one’s at risk of dying, you certainly feel it with some players crumbling to the pressure more than others.
Round 3 winner: The Challenge
Round 4: The Contestants
The contestants in Road to a Million represent a snapshot of everyday Brits. There’s a married couple, two uni mates, some old work colleagues—a real relatable bunch that don’t feel like they’re performing to the camera.
Wisely, the show introduces us to the Bone brothers first, a pair of loveable lads who just seem chuffed to be taking part in the whole experience. Looking and sounding a bit like a modern-day Jasper and Horace, their infectious energy and earnest brotherly camaraderie place you perfectly in the mood for the whole series.
They won me over early on when trying to answer a question about historical kings. ‘Jasper’ Bone looks at one of the three multichoice answers and declares, “MacBeth’s Scottish,” to which ‘Horace’ Bone replies, “Well, I get that because of the ‘Mac’.”
The Challenge opts for mostly American players, a quality that’ll instantly turn a lot of people off—especially if they mistook this for Squid Game: Season 2. If you’d rather see South Koreans participating in an elimination-style game show, let me happily point you to Physical: 100.
By its very nature, The Challenge needs a mix of “good guys” and “bad guys”. Player 432 fits the antagonist mould, saying he has the perfect number because “I’m the one!” If that’s not enough to send you into a groan-induced seizure, he goes on to say “Jesus had to compete, so I have to compete.”
While some are desperate for attention, others are financially desperate, with one player early on saying how the prize money would help her get out of debt. It’s one of the more unappealing aspects of the show, and you can’t help but feel like the producers of The Challenge didn’t quite take the original series’ commentary to heart.
It’s alleviated somewhat by the more wholesome contestants—like a mother-son duo, a really nice beekeeper, those who sing Happy Birthday to one of the oldest competitors—but you’ll feel more attached to Road to a Million’s agents.
Round 4 winner: Road to a Million
Final verdict
How do you compare a hamburger to a calculator? Depends if you’ve got hunger or a hypotenuse.
Road to a Million and The Challenge both churn out entertaining competition shows from their source material, so if you’ve only got one of the two streaming services or a mega-fan of either IP, you can’t lose. But if you have to choose, it depends on your sensibilities.
For a more likeable, uplifting, and adventurous show, Road to a Million is the safe choice. The contestants are great, their small wins microdose the series with joy, and it acts as a fast-paced travelogue too.
But for a more tense experience, The Challenge delivers that in a slicker package. While it doesn’t completely avoid the ickiness of adapting the source’s grim conceit, it nonetheless does an apt job of answering the “what if…” question that squatted in the minds of anyone who saw Squid Game.
