If you thought the unbearably tense gameshow couldn’t get any more vicious, try adding celebrities. Episode eight will be the best hour of reality TV in 2023, hands down
There’s nothing like a bit of backstabbing to liven up the doldrums of January. Clearly, someone at the BBC agrees, as arriving on iPlayer in its entirety is the US version of 2022’s best reality show, The Traitors. A word-of-mouth hit, this bum-clenchingly tense gameshow revitalised the watercooler moment, set group chats alight and garnered huge iPlayer numbers.
For those who missed it, the gameplay went something like this: 22 contestants headed to a castle in the Highlands where, joined by the host, Claudia Winkleman, they competed to win a cash prize. Sowing seeds of discontent were the traitors, three members of the group who were chosen to “murder” their fellow contestants and thereby reduce the player pool. The rest of the players – the faithful – were tasked with unhooding the traitors at nightly roundtable discussions, where accusations and paranoia rose to the surface. During the day, meanwhile, they worked as a team to win money. If the faithful successfully eliminated all the traitors before the final, they got to share the prize pot. If a traitor remained, they won everything.
