8.2 /10 1 Votes8.2
Country of origin BelgiumNetherlands No. of seasons 6 First episode date 14 March 2004 Number of seasons 6 Program creator Ludo Poppe | 8.2/10 IMDb Original language(s) Dutch No. of episodes 76 Theme song Summon the Worms Number of episodes 76 Writers Ludo Poppe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Similar La Ferme Célébrités, Koh‑Lanta, Loft Story, Nouvelle Star, Temptation Island | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Peking Express is a Dutch–Flemish reality game show that follows a series of couples as they hitchhike to or from Beijing (only in the first three seasons; seasons four and five are set in South America). The series has already gone through five seasons. In the Netherlands it is screened by Net 5 and in Belgium by VT4. A German version was shown in 2004. The concept has also been sold to Scandinavia where it was broadcast for the first time in the autumn of 2007. The Scandinavian version is shown on Kanal 5 in Sweden, TVNorge in Norway and Kanal 5 in Denmark. A French version named Pékin Express is screened by M6, with ten seasons aired from 2006 to 2014. It can be seen on TV5 outside France. In Spain, the first four seasons of local version Pekín Express aired on Cuatro from 2008 to 2011; Atresmedia acquired the rights in 2015 and has produced two seasons since. An Italian version has been produced since 2012 by RAI and shown on Rai 2 successfully.
Contents
General theme
The theme of the show is to demonstrate how various couples deal with the challenges and pitfalls of attempting a long-distance hitchhike to a strange city, together with all the difficulties presented by trying to communicate in a language they don't understand. Tension was added by including couples who had broken up "in real life", but were willing to work together for the sake of winning the race.
In somewhat similar fashion to The Amazing Race, couples that come in last at various checkpoints along the way are eliminated from further competition. In the second series, each of the couples was given €1 per person/per day as their stipend along the route.
Theme music
The music used during the opening sequence is "Summon the Worms" from Brian Tyler's soundtrack to the 2003 miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.
Italian Seasons
In this version, there are mainly VIP couples.