The tail end of the season, as happened a year ago, gives us the most interesting titles in television. If twelve months ago it was “The Money Road” that imposed itself, this time a seemingly unpretentious but highly enjoyable project like “The Unknown” emerges from the small screen.

This is an adventure game starring two teams, made up of well-known characters on one side and non-famous competitors on the other, who must face a path in which the choice between a known fate and an unknown one emerges cyclically. A crossroads which, depending on the decision, can improve or worsen the respective situations, overturning the balance.

A program with a disability

“The Unknown” has more pace than “Pechino Express”, at least the latest edition still in progress, however it carries a handicap right from the start, namely the popular belief that it is a copy of it in the Rai version. An understandable, inevitable combination, which however eliminates any type of analysis and evaluation of a product which from the first minutes has been able to build its own identity and narrative thanks to captivating editing.

If there must be a parallel, then the one with “The Money Road” itself makes much more sense, where the concept of temptation goes perfectly alongside the recurring desire to know the contents of the hidden envelope. The similarity, however, ends here.

On the VIP front, the cast is made up of Emanuela Folliero, Alessandro Matri, Soleil Sorge, Costanza Caracciolo, Pino Strabioli and Francesca Manzini.

The Strabioli surprise

Strabioli brings with him a devastating comic potential that, to date, only Geppi Cucciari in “Splendida Cornice” has intelligently grasped and exploited. Manzini, on the other hand, is the exact reproduction of what the public is already observing on “Big Brother VIP”, in a sort of ubiquity that shines a light on the overexposure of the actress, a limit that also affects Elettra Lamborghini, who hosts the program together with Gianluca Fubelli.

The two do not disfigure themselves in their correct marginality, even if Fubelli appears much more centered and functional when he abandons the ‘Coloradian’ role of Scintilla in his movements and voice.

The first episode of the journey through the beauties of Calabria (Italy is an open-air set, you just need to know how to exploit it) totaled 674,000 viewers, equal to 4.6%. Numbers that do not scream disaster or even success, but which amplify the regret for a suicidal and ‘contemporary’ positioning with the broadcast of the formats considered similar.