 October 5th. Global James Bond Day. Us Bond fans were once again left disappointed with no new news on Bond 26. In fact, Barbara Broccoli once again confirmed recently that nothing is going on in that department. 4 years since no time to die finished production. Nothing. Oh yeah, but they did release that trailer of some new Amazon Prime Bond spin-off show. 007 wrote to a million. That was what we got on Global James Bond Day. Personally, for me, that flew over and didn't really excite me too much. I did see the trailer at the time, and yeah, the concept seemed promising, but it left my mind pretty quickly. But now the show is actually released, and I figured, while I am super occupied with all the Bond 26 hype, I may as well try and squeeze in what little time is left before Bond 26 releases to watch this show in between. Ah, who am I kidding? So yeah, wrote to a million it is. Let's give it a fair shot. My expectation on the show beforehand was that regular people were going to be invited to compete in an action-packed reality competition, in which they needed to complete all kinds of Bond-related missions and stunts, like maybe jump the GoldenEye Dan, or ski from a cliff, or have a tarantula walk onto you, or jump over crocodiles, or maybe seduce a woman, or play a game of poker, and in between answer some Bond trivia questions here and there. And only those with the strongest stomach would advance to the next missions. Sort of a fear factor Bond edition. And well, I did get the regular people thing right, but that was about it, at least for episode one. Here's the concept. Brian Cox is the controller and is sort of presenting the whole thing, supposedly overlooking the contestants from a secret room. Presenting is probably a strong word. It's more or less calling nine duos up from random phone booths or laptops, giving them instructions and then they have to cross some field or hill to go to a lake to answer a question that is completely unrelated to Bond. If they get it right, they win money. If they get it wrong, they're out of the show. That's it. It would have been great had they be able to actually get someone from the Bond franchise, like Judy Dentz or Ray Fiennes or heck, even Ben Wishar or Nahomi Harris. Anyone would have worked for this show. It would have been an instant connection, but I'm not hating on Brian Cox, but you know, there's just nothing related to Bond with him. Now, the episode starts off quite promising. All kinds of Bond music plays us out, teasing you with various Bond references. It constantly has the soundtrack from the Daniel Craig movies on and it all looks very cinematic and gorgeous. It does feel like you're about to watch a Bond related show here. No complaints on the camera work or the music. It all looks and sounds great. I mean, as a Bond fan, it's obvious why they are in Scotland at a skyfall location. And then later on in the episode, in Venice, where Moonraker and Casino Royale were filmed, the contestants really have no clue though. Never for a minute do they even seem aware that they are in a James Bond show. At the time this was filmed, it very likely wasn't even a Bond show to begin with. It just seemed shoe-worn in later in the hopes of it selling better or something. But then again, they are in fact in all of the Bond locations. The opening teaser even has them in Matera. It seems super exciting, but then it just isn't and it's extremely underwhelming considering the potential of such a show. For starters, why not get actual Bond fans aboard for a quiz like this? Still regular people, but actual fans of Bond that actually know why they are where they are. People that know that their role's Royce is from Goldfinger. People that understand why they are in Scotland or Venice or wherever else they go. But there is nothing of the sort. It's just random people being asked non-related Bond questions. It may as well have been weak and millionaires, but then set in Bond locations, without the contestants being aware. That is what this show is. This is not a Bond show. It's a quiz where people have to answer questions at certain locations. And I think that's what's so disappointing about this show, or at least about episode one, because that's the only one I ended up watching so far. And honestly, for these reasons, I really didn't feel compelled to continue watching the later episodes. Which, admittedly, may not be fair. Maybe in the later episodes, all of this changes. And yeah, I did see some teasers of the later episodes of them driving the DB5. Surely they must be aware what car they're driving. But still, if you're going to market this as random people being put in James Bond situations to see how far they will go for a million, why not actually do that? Why not push people to their actual limits? We're just watching random people go to a lake in Scotland to answer a question about Shakespeare. And they mention it took them seven hours of walking. We're not even shown any of the struggle. We just see them walk to a hill, and then seconds later they arrive there. For all we know, the production may as well have driven them there. We're not shown any of the trip. And then when they arrive, all of a sudden they find exactly what they need. Clearly, the production must have helped them off camera. It's just so forced. And then two random girls, also in Scotland, have to answer something about hunts and vikings and romans. Why not ask them something about Skyfall, the location they are in? Why not add some mystery as to where they need to go next? I mean, the production clearly just takes the duo up to Venice. We're not even shown how they travel there. It would be so much cooler if these contestants were on actual missions instead of them just going from point A to B to answer a multiple choice question on a laptop. And there were nine duos too. We're not even shown all of them in episode one. They're not even in the same missions. It's all separate from each other. I doubt the contestants even are aware who else was competing on this show. It's kind of unexciting, even if I were to judge it as a show that had nothing to do with Bond. Well, technically that is what it is, but there's no real sense of competition or logic. The episode ends up with one duo being in Venice. Again, so much Bond potential in that city. Instead, they need to measure a snake and the cliffhanger is whether or not these guys measured the snake correctly. And it brings in the Dr. Nose circles, fading the show out as sort of a tease. And I was like, oh yeah, it's a Bond show. You completely forget because apart from the locations and the music, it really has nothing to do with Bond. Again, this was just episode one. Maybe I'm uploading this quick reaction to a poor opening of a series, and it actually does become mind-blowingly good in the later episodes. But from the reactions I'm seeing appear within the Bond community, this disappointing feeling stays in the later episodes too. Such a shame, because it's fantastic that they're visiting all these Bond locations, but man would it have been so much more fun with actual people that no Bond. We're not that hard to find. I do like the Bone Brothers duo, which you see in episode one. While it's unclear whether or not they are actual Bond fans, they do seem like very level-headed, fun guys you could hang out with. You do end up rooting for such regular guys, I give them that. It must have been very fun to compete in this show. And again, camera work, music, nothing wrong with it. But please, this is not a Bond show, let alone a Bond spin-off. The producer David Glover even mentioned the idea is really to put ordinary people into a James Bond adventure, and we didn't quite know how that would work out. And that totally shows. The idea is great actually. They had the budget, clearly, to turn this into something exciting too. But in my opinion, they completely missed the mark. So apart from being reminded by the locations and the music of Bond films, you end up feeling you would much rather watch one of those films than to see two girls play a high-stakes game of trivial pursuit on some hill that happened to be in the background at Skyfall. So if you haven't seen the show yet, I'd say don't bother. If you did, what did you think of the show? Am I being too harsh, or maybe not fair, since I only really saw episode one? Or do you agree with my thoughts? Let me know what you think. See you guys in the next video.