I’d never watched The Traitors before but settled down for season 3 of the UK version, which started on New Year’s Day. It’s as brilliant and addictive as everyone promised me. I’ve tried to work out what makes it quite so compelling and why it is so much better than other reality TV. I’ve been worrying all weekend about what is going to happen in episode four tomorrow!
There are a couple of key points. Everyone in the castle knows they are playing a game. They all ultimately want the money and don’t pretend otherwise. There is none of the delusion that they are in it for romance, as contestants still pretend on Love Island. This is despite us knowing that what they really want is a lot of Instagram followers and a deal with BooHoo. Hopefully, this honesty from the players can last even though the show has become more popular.
The way the show is staged heightens everything too. The Traitors meeting in the turret, the arrivals at breakfast waiting to see who has been murdered, rows at the roundtable… High camp. Great TV.
Claudia Winkelman is Queen of The Traitors
The other factor that makes The Traitors so great in the UK is Claudia Winkelman. The host creates the exact right mix of silly and serious. Her knitwear and over-the-top declarations tie it all together perfectly. The show simply would not work without her and, like Davina McCall with Big Brother, it is hard to imagine anyone else hosting. Winkelman is every bit as important as the contestants, if not more so. However, she rarely steals the limelight. It’s a subtle set of skills that not many have.
The BBC have done a great job of maximising what it gets from the show too. Ed Gamble hosts Uncloaked, an accompanying podcast, helping to keep the superfans fully locked-in.
Yes, likely, the Traitors will ultimately come out on top. However, the human interactions we see in the build-up make for unissable television. It is quite extraordinary how quickly the paranoia levels surge and the Traitors can even turn on each other. Being too nice is as grave an offence as being awful, if not more so. Looking the wrong way at the wrong moment can be fatal. Nobody can ever fully trust anyone else.
Also… Minah for the win.
You can watch all of The Traitors for free on BBC iPlayer. Licence fee-paying Brits who are abroad can use a VPN to access the show as normal. The VPN I use is NordVPN.
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