Latest news with #Mahdi
The Irish Sun
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
BBC broke TV's golden rule with boring new series Destination X – no wonder a contestant got up and left
SOMETHING odd happened about halfway through episode one of BBC1's heavily trailed new reality show, Destination X. One of the contestants, Mahdi, simply got up and left. 6 Destination X is hosted by the unfortunate Rob Brydon who takes an eternity to explain what's going on to the 13 contestants Credit: PA 6 One of the contestants, Mahdi, simply got up and left - he just seemed a bit bored Credit: BBC He wasn't angry, or upset, let alone put off by the fact, 30 minutes earlier, he'd told everyone: 'I come from Tottenham, da trenches. You know what I'm sayin'.' He just seemed a bit bored. And you know what? I couldn't entirely blame Mahdi. Both of us had probably seen enough, by then, to know we were on to a loser with BBC breaking one of television's golden rules: If you've got a hit as big as The Traitors or Race Across The World, you leave it well alone. Let ITV and Netflix tie themselves in knots with hopeless rip-offs like The very last thing you should do, in the Beeb's position, of course, is weld those two famously successful formats together in one pan-European charabanc, with a 'games-master, guide and guru' who looks like he's been styled by Basil Brush. No prizes for guessing then exactly what they've done with Destination X, hosted by the unfortunate The nuts of it is, though, a 'guess where the f*** you are in Europe ?' contest, with the furthest away contestant being eliminated at the end of each show. Low-level cunning An idea that probably sounded great at the first meeting. The practical issue here, though, is one road sign or chance encounter with a local could blow the entire project out of the water. And so, apart from the brief moments when the contestants are allowed to gawp at a location clue, via an electronically controlled blindfold called the X Goggles, they're just thundering around the continent in two blacked-out coaches, staring at nothing more scenic than each other. Fans stunned as THREE Destination X contestants are immediately axed in brutal opening twist Result? Not only does the show look more like Channel 4's Coach Trip has been hijacked by Hezbollah, during the Beirut leg, it sounds like it as well — especially when Ben and Saskia are left discussing on- board bathroom arrangements. 'I think we have to make a rule. Everyone has to sit down when they go to the toilet.' 'As opposed to what?' If, from that question, you've guessed it's not exactly the Brains Trust BBC1 has assembled here, then I should point out they seem to be a pleasant bunch with a relaxed, happy-go-lucky attitude to life. What they don't appear to have is a second language between them. Nor do they even possess the sort of low-level cunning that would realise, given the BBC is the most snootily middle-class institution in Britain, that Benidorm, Torremolinos, Hamburg's Reeperbahn or anywhere else serviced by EasyJet is probably off limits, but they'll be all over France and Italy like scatter cushions in an Islington townhouse. 6 BBC breaks one of television's golden rules with Destination X: If you've got a hit as big as The Traitors or Race Across The World, you leave it well alone Credit: PA If this process wasn't already disorientating enough, a whole new level of confusion is added by the clues, which are either so vague as to be pointless — 'This was one of the first places in the world to adopt street lighting' (relax, you're not in Tower Hamlets) — or they're questions which offer only two possible responses: 'How many times did Taylor Swift perform her Eras tour in the country you are now in?' A) Don't know. B) Don't care. Ungrateful gesture Occasionally, Rob will also offer to show one of them something 'at the back of the bus', and they can either tell another contestant or BBC1's head of HR, which seems to have been Mahdi's cue for making his excuses and leaving. A spectacularly ungrateful gesture from the lad, no matter how bored he got, if I'm honest. The one person I do actually feel sorry for, though, is Rob Brydon, a huge talent who's one of the very few people left on television capable of transforming a format and making you believe the medium is still some sort of meritocracy. The show may gather some momentum as it proceeds, obviously, but the only real comfort I've got for him at the moment is that Destination X could still make for one hell of a celebrity spin-off, with Terry Waite. Unexpected morons in the bagging area TIPPING Point, Ben Shephard: 'In 2020 Australia introduced a dollar coin design that celebrated which airline?' Liz: 'British Airways.' The Chase, Bradley Walsh: 'The terminal velocity of a free-falling parachutist is 150 miles per what?' Seb: 'Second.' And Impossible, Rick Edwards, offering alternative answers of B) Barron or C) Ivanka to the question: 'Which of Donald Trump's children was appointed an official adviser to the President in 2017?' Pete: 'A) Judd Trump.' Ella is having a giraffe 6 Ella Al- Shamahi starts this series in east Africa, where the scale of our development and migration cannot be fully understood unless you go on a safari and stare at some giraffes, apparently Credit: BBC BBC2'S grand new anthropology series Human marks ground-breaking territory for television. The first time the entire history of mankind has been told via the medium of bucket list holiday locations. You can only marvel then at the luck of presenter Ella Al- Shamahi who starts this series, like mankind itself, in east Africa, where the scale of our development and migration cannot be fully understood unless you go on a safari and stare at some giraffes, apparently. From there, Ella wafts her way round the globe via a waterfall in Sri Lanka, Morocco , Botswana, France's Rhone Valley, the Alps and a beach on the paradise island of Flores, in Indonesia, where our ancestors may (or may not) have first set off for Australia . Because these great milestones in evolution never seem to take place behind a shopping precinct in Grimsby, do they? Whatever exotic resort Ella wafts into, though, someone else has done the leg work for her already. In Flores it's Dr Thomas Sutikna, who discovered the 70,000-year-old skeleton of 'an adult woman, the size of a child, with a very small brain', yet somehow resisted the temptation to name her Homo Jimmykrankieus. For all the BBC's breathtaking extravagance, though, the most annoying thing about Human is the underlying political agenda of Ella, who was gazing into some beautiful European mountain valley, this week, wondering if the first homo sapiens to leave Africa, thousands of years ago, were driven by 'the same forces that drive migrants today?' A four-star hotel, Universal Credit and an Uber Eats bike? It seems unlikely, Ella. So just crack on with your gap year and spare us the lecture. TV gold AMAZON Prime's slow-moving but brilliant One Night In Idaho. Senior investigating officer Mick Pope, from the National Crime Agency, proving to be the break-out star of Channel 4's fascinating documentary series Operation Dark Phone: Murder By Text. Sky Comedy repeating the Palestinian Chicken episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which says more about the Middle East conflict, in one unbeatable episode of comedy, than most news reports. And ITV's ever- enthusiastic Ian Wright, who was the one Euros 2025 pundit who didn't hand his or her critical faculties in at passport control in Geneva – and certainly the only expert with the wit to check the England team's inappropriate Queen celebration music on account of the fact: 'Spain are actually Champions of the World.' Random irritations 6 C4 gave Bonnie Blue the oxygen of publicity Credit: Rob Parfitt / Channel 4 CHANNEL 4 giving the cold, dead eyes of Bonnie Blue the oxygen of publicity. Any show involving a QR code. Mastermind featuring the most clumsily worded questions on television. And a single caption on Good Morning Britain probably revealing exactly how much of a toss its rictus-grinning presenters and a lot of other people really gave about 'our Lionesses' at 8.21 on Monday morning. It's spelt Wiegman, not 'Weigman'. Great sporting insights ELLEN WHITE: 'I'm sure they have some strings up their sleeves.' Rachel Brown-Finnis: 'I initially thought it was nothing. But on the replay, it was less than that.' Karen Carney: 'Lucy Bronze has her hands in her head.' Lookalike of the week 6 Attorney General Lord Hermer and Corrie's Norris Cole Credit: supplied THIS week's winner is Attorney General Lord Hermer, the right-on cretin who helped land Britain with a multi-billion- pound bill for handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, and Corrie's Norris Cole. Emailed in by Steve Davis. EXCUSE of the week? Nigerian-born Ade Adepitan explaining his reluctance to get in the water on ITV Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters: 'When black people were taken as slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and the West, they were taken on boats and they saw people die on those boats. They saw people thrown into the ocean and they saw the ocean as a bridge taking them to hell. 'This trauma goes on through generations from family after family after family. 'It's stayed with us and we have to overcome it.' Which reminds me. Due to the Highland Clearances of 1750 to 1860, I am unable to review episode four, series 22, of Escape To The Country (Perth and Kinross). It's just too raw. LORRAINE , Tuesday, Nicola Thorp: 'What does it say to women that our PM is going to meet Donald Trump , considering what he thinks of women, rather than meet the Lionesses?' It probably says ending the war in Ukraine , signing international trade agreements and establishing a ceasefire in Gaza are a bit more important than a ball-kicking contest. Unless they're all as imperiously thick as yourself, Nicola. MEANWHILE, on Channel 5's Police: Suspect No1, DI Jim Clarke: 'In relation to these indecent exposures that have been happening on the track between Hull and Hornsea, the suspect's quite prolific, so we need to get a grip of it.' I wouldn't.
Scottish Sun
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
BBC broke TV's golden rule with boring new series Destination X – no wonder a contestant got up and left
SOMETHING odd happened about halfway through episode one of BBC1's heavily trailed new reality show, Destination X. One of the contestants, Mahdi, simply got up and left. 6 Destination X is hosted by the unfortunate Rob Brydon who takes an eternity to explain what's going on to the 13 contestants Credit: PA 6 One of the contestants, Mahdi, simply got up and left - he just seemed a bit bored Credit: BBC He wasn't angry, or upset, let alone put off by the fact, 30 minutes earlier, he'd told everyone: 'I come from Tottenham, da trenches.
The Sun
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
BBC broke TV's golden rule with much-hyped Destination X – a lost cause that feels like Hezbollah hijacked Coach Trip
SOMETHING odd happened about halfway through episode one of BBC1's heavily trailed new reality show, Destination X. One of the contestants, Mahdi, simply got up and left. 6 He wasn't angry, or upset, let alone put off by the fact, 30 minutes earlier, he'd told everyone: 'I come from Tottenham, da trenches. You know what I'm sayin'.' He just seemed a bit bored. And you know what? I couldn't entirely blame Mahdi. Both of us had probably seen enough, by then, to know we were on to a loser with Destination X, which sees the BBC breaking one of television's golden rules: If you've got a hit as big as The Traitors or Race Across The World, you leave it well alone. Let ITV and Netflix tie themselves in knots with hopeless rip-offs like The Genius Game, Hotel Fortune and Million Dollar Secret. The very last thing you should do, in the Beeb's position, of course, is weld those two famously successful formats together in one pan-European charabanc, with a 'games-master, guide and guru' who looks like he's been styled by Basil Brush. No prizes for guessing then exactly what they've done with Destination X, hosted by the unfortunate Rob Brydon who takes an eternity to explain what's going on to the 13 contestants at Baden Baden airport, inauspicious starting point for both this 'magical mystery tour' and England's bid to win the 2006 World Cup. The nuts of it is, though, a 'guess where the f*** you are in Europe?' contest, with the furthest away contestant being eliminated at the end of each show. Low-level cunning An idea that probably sounded great at the first meeting. The practical issue here, though, is one road sign or chance encounter with a local could blow the entire project out of the water. And so, apart from the brief moments when the contestants are allowed to gawp at a location clue, via an electronically controlled blindfold called the X Goggles, they're just thundering around the continent in two blacked-out coaches, staring at nothing more scenic than each other. Result? Not only does the show look more like Channel 4's Coach Trip has been hijacked by Hezbollah, during the Beirut leg, it sounds like it as well — especially when Ben and Saskia are left discussing on- board bathroom arrangements. 'I think we have to make a rule. Everyone has to sit down when they go to the toilet.' 'As opposed to what?' If, from that question, you've guessed it's not exactly the Brains Trust BBC1 has assembled here, then I should point out they seem to be a pleasant bunch with a relaxed, happy-go-lucky attitude to life. What they don't appear to have is a second language between them. Nor do they even possess the sort of low-level cunning that would realise, given the BBC is the most snootily middle-class institution in Britain, that Benidorm, Torremolinos, Hamburg's Reeperbahn or anywhere else serviced by EasyJet is probably off limits, but they'll be all over France and Italy like scatter cushions in an Islington townhouse. 6 If this process wasn't already disorientating enough, a whole new level of confusion is added by the clues, which are either so vague as to be pointless — 'This was one of the first places in the world to adopt street lighting' (relax, you're not in Tower Hamlets) — or they're questions which offer only two possible responses: 'How many times did Taylor Swift perform her Eras tour in the country you are now in?' A) Don't know. B) Don't care. Ungrateful gesture Occasionally, Rob will also offer to show one of them something 'at the back of the bus', and they can either tell another contestant or BBC1's head of HR, which seems to have been Mahdi's cue for making his excuses and leaving. A spectacularly ungrateful gesture from the lad, no matter how bored he got, if I'm honest. The one person I do actually feel sorry for, though, is Rob Brydon, a huge talent who's one of the very few people left on television capable of transforming a format and making you believe the medium is still some sort of meritocracy. The show may gather some momentum as it proceeds, obviously, but the only real comfort I've got for him at the moment is that Destination X could still make for one hell of a celebrity spin-off, with Terry Waite. Ella is having a giraffe 6 BBC2'S grand new anthropology series Human marks ground-breaking territory for television. The first time the entire history of mankind has been told via the medium of bucket list holiday locations. You can only marvel then at the luck of presenter Ella Al- Shamahi who starts this series, like mankind itself, in east Africa, where the scale of our development and migration cannot be fully understood unless you go on a safari and stare at some giraffes, apparently. From there, Ella wafts her way round the globe via a waterfall in Sri Lanka, Morocco, Botswana, France's Rhone Valley, the Alps and a beach on the paradise island of Flores, in Indonesia, where our ancestors may (or may not) have first set off for Australia. Because these great milestones in evolution never seem to take place behind a shopping precinct in Grimsby, do they? Whatever exotic resort Ella wafts into, though, someone else has done the leg work for her already. In Flores it's Dr Thomas Sutikna, who discovered the 70,000-year-old skeleton of 'an adult woman, the size of a child, with a very small brain', yet somehow resisted the temptation to name her Homo Jimmykrankieus. For all the BBC's breathtaking extravagance, though, the most annoying thing about Human is the underlying political agenda of Ella, who was gazing into some beautiful European mountain valley, this week, wondering if the first homo sapiens to leave Africa, thousands of years ago, were driven by 'the same forces that drive migrants today?' A four-star hotel, Universal Credit and an Uber Eats bike? It seems unlikely, Ella. So just crack on with your gap year and spare us the lecture. Random irritations CHANNEL 4 giving the cold, dead eyes of Bonnie Blue the oxygen of publicity. Any show involving a QR code. Mastermind featuring the most clumsily worded questions on television. And a single caption on Good Morning Britain probably revealing exactly how much of a toss its rictus-grinning presenters and a lot of other people really gave about 'our Lionesses' at 8.21 on Monday morning. It's spelt Wiegman, not 'Weigman'. Lookalike of the week 6 THIS week's winner is Attorney General Lord Hermer, the right-on cretin who helped land Britain with a multi-billion- pound bill for handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, and Corrie's Norris Cole. Emailed in by Steve Davis. EXCUSE of the week? Nigerian-born Ade Adepitan explaining his reluctance to get in the water on ITV Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters: 'When black people were taken as slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and the West, they were taken on boats and they saw people die on those boats. They saw people thrown into the ocean and they saw the ocean as a bridge taking them to hell. 'This trauma goes on through generations from family after family after family. 'It's stayed with us and we have to overcome it.' Which reminds me. Due to the Highland Clearances of 1750 to 1860, I am unable to review episode four, series 22, of Escape To The Country (Perth and Kinross). It's just too raw. LORRAINE, Tuesday, Nicola Thorp: 'What does it say to women that our PM is going to meet Donald Trump, considering what he thinks of women, rather than meet the Lionesses?' It probably says ending the war in Ukraine, signing international trade agreements and establishing a ceasefire in Gaza are a bit more important than a ball-kicking contest. Unless they're all as imperiously thick as yourself, Nicola. Hull and Hornsea, the suspect's quite prolific, so we need to get a grip of it.' I wouldn't.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: No scheming, no scenery, no risk... Brydon's travel game has no point
Destination X (BBC1) The Beatles didn't invent the mystery tour. A century ago, holidaymakers were paying their pound for a ride to some surprise seaside town in an open–topped bus called a charabanc. Rob Brydon is attempting to update the tradition in Destination X, taking 13 travellers and sending them off who–knows–where in a luxury coach. To win the game, and £100,000, all they have to do is guess where they are. But the fun of an old–fashioned mystery tour lies in the sights and discoveries along the way. Rob has ruined it by making sure nobody, including the viewers, has a clue what country they're in, let alone what the views are like. The coach windows are blacked out. When the players do step outside, they wear electronic goggles that allow them only the briefest of glimpses. In one of the show's many ill–judged twists, there are miniature cameras inside the goggles, so we can see the contestants' eyeballs staring around blindly. At one point, all goggled up, they were loaded onto helicopters and whirled around the countryside. This exercise in sensory deprivation and disorientation made me feel queasy, just watching it. But I'd rather go flying in a blindfold than spend a night on the claustrophobic Destination X dormitory coach, fitted out with narrow bunkbeds along a narrow corridor, like the cabins in a submarine. 'I hope people have got good hygiene,' worried 22–year–old Mahdi, the youngest player. The following morning, he packed his suitcase and quit the game. Let's pray it was just the snoring he couldn't stand. The game began with a blizzard of feints and fakery that seemed to have no real point. The players arrived at an airport in Baden–Baden that was clearly not real: the baggage counter was between the duty–free shop and the boarding gate, with not a customs officer in sight. Most of the 'passengers' were extras, who stood up on a signal and walked out together. More artificial still, the actors playing airport staff were chosen because they had identical twins – so that similar faces could pop up at different places along the route. By now, Destination X, which continues tonight, was starting to resemble an art 'happening', and it didn't get any less contrived when the players were herded into a box in the middle of a provincial town, somewhere in Central Europe. Every so often, a slot like a letterbox opened and the travellers crowded round trying to spy clues. Brydon, parading in a double–breasted blazer like a Pontins holiday rep, did his best to inject some laughs, but his script didn't have one memorable line. If the Beeb was trying to combine The Traitors with Race Across The World, it's succeeded - but only by losing the best bits from both shows. There's no skulduggery, no sensational scenery, no jeopardy, no excitement and no point.
Arab Times
3 days ago
- Arab Times
Indian nurse's death sentence in Yemen not overturned: sources
NEW DELHI, July 29: Contrary to earlier reports, the death sentence of Indian nurse Nimisha Priya in Yemen has not been overturned, according to sources cited by news agency ANI on Tuesday. 'Information being shared by certain individuals on the Nimisha Priya case is inaccurate,' the sources said, refuting claims that the Yemeni authorities had cancelled her capital punishment. The clarification came shortly after a statement from the office of the Indian Grand Mufti claimed that the death sentence had been revoked following a high-level meeting in Sanaa. "The death sentence of Nimisha Priya, which was previously suspended, has been overturned," the Mufti's office said earlier, suggesting that a decision had been made to cancel the suspended sentence entirely. However, sources familiar with the matter dismissed this account, asserting that no such formal cancellation has been confirmed by Yemeni authorities. Nimisha Priya, a 37-year-old nurse from Kerala, had moved to Yemen in 2008 in pursuit of better employment opportunities. In 2015, she entered into a partnership with a Yemeni national, Talal Abdo Mahdi, to establish a medical clinic—an arrangement necessitated by Yemeni laws prohibiting foreign ownership of businesses. What began as a professional collaboration, however, soon turned into a harrowing ordeal. According to Priya's family, Mahdi used a doctored wedding photograph taken during a trip to India to falsely claim he was married to her. He then reportedly took over the clinic, seized her earnings, and subjected her to ongoing abuse — ranging from physical assault and drug-induced attacks to the confiscation of her passport to restrict her movements. Her attempts to seek help allegedly led to her being briefly jailed, rather than being protected by law enforcement. Desperate to escape, Nimisha reportedly attempted to sedate Mahdi to retrieve her passport. However, the dosage proved fatal, leading to his death by overdose. She was subsequently arrested and convicted of murder, receiving a death sentence under Yemeni law. The case has drawn widespread attention in India and abroad, with human rights advocates and government representatives seeking diplomatic avenues for clemency. Although her sentence had previously been suspended, hopes that it would be overturned appear premature based on the latest clarifications from official sources.
