The Big Trip, Channel 7 review: you could fall asleep and not miss a thing

At the beginning of The Big Trip, host Dave Thornton says ‘I want life to give me a punch in the face’, which is an extremely brave thing to say when you’re hosting what looks like an Amazing Race knockoff.

But then he says ‘I’m bringing the old school Oz adventure back’, and that’s exactly what we want to hear. The big promise behind The Big Trip is that we’re going to get a reality show that’s a bit more ramshackle, a bit rough around the edges, a bit low budget.

The hope is that this will be a show that takes the fact that sure, it’s a format we’ve all seen before and it’s airing right at the end of the year so expectations are low, and then uses that to inject proceedings with a bit of offbeat television energy – even if the whole thing was clearly filmed and edited months before.

We’ve seen the polished version a dozen times before: now we want something new. Does The Big Trip deliver?

The Big Trip: set-up

The set-up is pretty standard stuff. Four teams of celebrity mates (who actually do seem to be friends) are driving 3,000 kilometres from the Nullarbor to Sydney. Watching cars drive down dirt tracks isn’t really enough to fill a one-hour timeslot, so they’re also taking on various challenges – an oyster-eating race and dressing up as cut-price versions of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert atop a truck help fill out episode one.

We’re repeatedly told ‘it’s not a race, it’s a road trip’. But if there are challenges, there must be a winner; does Australian television even make programs that don’t have winners? Our celebrities get nothing personally for winning the series, but they do get to give away $300,000 worth of hybrid and EV cars. Which makes the whole enterprise sound just a little like one big car commercial, but welcome to reality television 2024 style.

The Big Trip: four teams

Four teams isn’t a lot, so they’re all pretty distinct. Former The Block contestants Mitch and Mark are operating well outside their wheelhouse – not a lot of call for home designers in the middle of the Outback – but they’re loud, they’re colourful, and they fill the generic reality TV character slot.

Olympic Gold medallist and Australian Survivor contestant Lydia Lassila is paired off with actor turned Australian Survivor winner Pia Miranda to create a duo you probably wouldn’t want to bet against. They’re not the automatic winners, they just seem like the pair that knows what they’re doing.

Dilruk Jayasinha and Lehmo are the comedians, which always seems like a bit of an odd fit for this kind of reality show. Surely they could boost their profile just as easily by appearing on one of the many, many panel shows currently on air? In fact, wasn’t Lehmo just on Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odessey over on SBS (short answer: yes)? They’re the ones most likely to have the wheels come off, which also makes them the most entertaining.

ScreenHub: Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey, SBS review

Well, apart from the final pair, Nikki Osborne and Gyton Grantley. Grantley’s been in a wide range of dramas (and the occasional comedy) over the years; Osborne is a comedian who shows up in a lot of things (most recently on Dancing with the Stars) without ever quite breaking out into a starring role.

The big twist here is that they’re not just friends, they were romantically entangled back at university and didn’t mention that to anyone involved with the production. It’s not exactly a scandal worthy of the cover of Woman’s Day, but with this kind of show you take what you can get – and their slightly awkward memories of their young love are kind of sweet.

And that low key kind of thing is this series’ big strength. The obvious comparison might be The Amazing Race, but that show actually has stakes and tension; this has Lehmo stopping off at Poochera and making a lot of groaning noises as he gets out of the car to go to the pub while Dil gets excited at buying a Zooper Dooper.

So while there are no big names, no big drama, no big excitement and no big stakes, there is a kind of pleasant aimless Sunday drive vibe to proceedings that makes The Big Trip soothing in a ‘I could fall asleep watching this and not miss a thing’ way.

It’s not a show you’d go out of your way to watch. It’s possibly not even a show you’d remember watching if you did. But it’s the kind of lightweight, celebrity-based (in an ‘are these people actual celebrities?’ way), not-taking-itself-seriously viewing that makes Australian television feel like something more than just an endless string of commercials featuring nobodies dancing, singing and building houses.

Though in episode two Dil does amuse a bunch of schoolkids by running around pretending to have poo down the back of his pants, so maybe the commercials have their strengths too.

The Big Trip premieres on Channel 7 and 7Plus on 13 November 2024.