It’s fair to say that the announcement of 007: Road to a Million in March 2022 raised a few eyebrows, Roger Moore-style.

It was inevitable that Amazon’s earlier acquisition of MGM would lead to Bond spin-offs being developed for its Prime Video streaming service, but few expected the first offering out of the gate to be an unscripted, reality competition series.

Here, nine pairs of regular people are “unleashed on an epic global adventure” and must take on a set of physical challenges, before facing a string of brainteasers, inching their way closer towards winning a £1 million jackpot with each correct answer. Get just one question wrong and they’re eliminated from the contest.

The decision to opt for a show like 007: Road to a Million over, say, a small-screen Felix Leiter series might smart all the more for Bond fans given that this show is the first slice of 007-related action we’ve seen in over two years, and the only one we’re likely to get for the foreseeable – over four years after principal photography wrapped on Daniel Craig’s final outing No Time to Die, we’re still being told that the hunt for his successor hasn’t “even begun”.

That additional burden will doubtless count against 007: Road to a Million, which promises to transport ordinary people into the spectacular world of Ian Fleming’s secret agent.

In fact, the show’s links to the franchise that allegedly inspired it can, at best, be described as loose – it originated as a concept for a generic adventure game show, with the Bond IP later being appended to the format to help sell it to audiences, and it shows.