Tomorrow (Saturday) at 3pm on Radio 3 and Live from the Royal Albert Hall, Claudia Winkleman introduces music from The Traitors, classical pieces about deception and gothicy pop covers the show is famous for, meanwhile Katie Derham has a chat with the show’s composer Sam Watts and Linda the opera singer from last year.

Should be fun, here’s the BBC’s programme site. As far as I’m aware it’s being recorded for a TV broadcast later in the year but tomorrow it’s audio only unless you’re there.

In the red corner! Worldwide not-sensation Destination X starting next Wednesday (30th) and Thursday at 9pm and going out every Wednesday and Thursday thereafter. Claimed by lazy writers to be a cross between Race Across the World (i.e. they’re on a bus) and The Traitors (i.e. people get eliminated?) this was a big co-commission for the BBC – £20m was a number being bandied about, although how much NBC (not a massive flop to be fair, but not much to shout about either) contributed to that I don’t know. I don’t think it will be shit, and Rob Brydon is the mystery ingredient that widens the possibility space, but we watched a number of episodes of the original and just didn’t find it that interesting, the hook the show sold itself on (is the clue real or fake?) fades into a pretty standard challenge show background and ultimately the mystery just wasn’t that compelling, although we’d watch a Making Of definitely. However they will have had some time to make format adjustments, but have they done enough? It’s not been a hit anywhere outside Flanders really. The first week is also up against the final week of a resurgent Love Island which yes is watched largely in catch-up, but it’s still good for about a million in overnight it will be priority for. My base case is that it starts well and then drops, in line with everywhere else. Also TwoFour were responsible for Loaded in Paradise on ITVX which was actually good fun even if nobody watched it, so it’s not like they can’t pull off this sort of thing.

And in the blue corner and starting a week later (6th August) and also going out at 9pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays Stephen Mangan is back with the second series of The Fortune Hotel, the first series of which I ended up enjoying even if I went into it not really wanting to, selling tiself as ‘a bit like The Traitors‘ but it isn’t really. I’m hoping that the contestants are a bit more strategically minded this time around, there’s a surprising amount of possible tactics considering the soul of the game is “find the case” of which last year’s lot did not think about using, but the first run definitely felt like a show that had potential. So much so Netflix ripped off its endgame for Million Dollar Secret with Peter Serafinowicz, which must have been galling. The first series was not a massive hit in the overnights but apparently did well on ITVX and with demos, at least they’ve waited to avoid a Love Island clash.

The overnights will be fun – I think with the amount the BBC have pushed Desty X if the first episode starts with a 3, 2, or a 1 corresponds to a success, fine, a sucking in breath through your teeth scenario, ITV will probably be mildly less bothered about The Fortune Hotel, or at least the likelihood of it opening to a 1.Xm number is built in. Really interesting will be the Thursday night retentions. Of course these numbers are good gossip, until the +7s and the demos come in we won’t have an idea of how happy people truly are. Putting these shows out in August feels like A Choice.

In other news Gladiators started filming today and will be filming seemingly though to the 5th August (schedule looks like 23rd-27th Heats, 29th Celebs, 30th-1st Quarters, both Semis on the 3rd and the Final on the 5th) so we ought to get leaks about new stuff in due course.

• ITV have announced Millionaire Hot Seat (alongside 19 new episodes of Millionaire), the fast paced ‘highly tactical’ version of the format with the stupid non-money tree money tree. It began in Italy and then sold to a handful of places, most notably Australia where it ran as a daily show for 2,500+ episodes before The Chase killed it. It didn’t last that long anywhere else. Whether or not you like it seems to depend on whether you can see past the obvious contrivances, it’s probably going in one of the 7:30pm slots on ITV next year. It is better than other Millionaire spin-offs Fastest Finger First and 50:50, to be fair.
• Neil Patrick Harris’ What’s In The Box? recorded for Netflix last weekend and reports we’ve read make it sound legen…wait for it…darily poor! As we undertand it it’s an arc-ed gameshow, couples answer questions to pick spaces off a board, some of which describe a prize in a box and if you uncover enough of them you get what’s in the box, but some spaces are bad and can mean losing prizes to others or even going home. Quote: “Not a total disaster, but very little to commend it other than the grandiose set and prizes. If the prizes hadn’t been sponsored I think there’s a chance they might can it rather than broadcast it to save the prize budget and write the whole lot off as a loss.”
• In happier Netflix news, they’ve announced US and European versions of Bother’s Bar favourite Physical 100, one of the shining lights of the South Korean Authority Voice Sets Tasks genre although they promised Physical 100: Asia 18 months ago and we’ve not heard anything about it since (Q4 this year apparently).
• And now Japan’s getting in on the act with Final Draft which appears to be… basically Physical 100 but with retired sportspeople who may or may not have retired on their own terms, battling it out for 30m Yen. That’s coming August 12th, so not long to wait.

Edit: Destination X going out Wednesdays and Thursdays from 30th July (there was an interview with Rob Brydon in The Telegraph last week that gave this date away, but now it’s confi… sorry, CONFIRMED), a similar schedule to this year’s other big will it/won’t it show “The” Genius Game. But hold! Wasn’t The Fortune Hotel set for Wednesday/Thursday nights as well? A clash of the reality format titans in store! It’s lucky nobody watches linear TV any more.

…is BACK! On November 4th. This feels quite surprising for some reason although it’s been two years since the first one so it shouldn’t be really. Also a third series has been greenlit, although I thought it was recommissioned for two further series anyway, maybe I’m misremembering. Advert doesn’t pick a fight with Mr Beast over which is “bigger”.

I note they seem to be going with ink splats now rather than blood packs.

I’m extremely interested to see if and how they’ve translated some of the games from the recent series, clearly they’re using the five tasks race thing in this trailer, but I’m intrigued to see if they do the Starry Night Hide and Seek from the recent series (which I suspect will have been much too much hassle to actually recreate in real life, but I’d be really interested to know how creatively that was shot and how much set they built for it) amongst other games I’ll not spoil (but they’re definitely going to have to replace the last one).

In other Game of Death news, Alice in Borderland 3 (Squid Game‘s smarter, dare I say better cousin) is out September 25th. Can’t wait!