This article contains spoilers.
The New Year has brought the return of BBC’s ‘The Traitors’, and I am loving it so far. I’m clearly not the only one, as the New Year’s Day premiere enjoyed a peak viewership of 5.4 million, 2 million more than the previous season’s opening episode. The show is undoubtedly a huge success and still growing, but I hope the BBC will push it to evolve instead of forcing it into an Apprentice-like formula.
Season 3 has lived up to the drama of its predecessors, with bizarre lies, family betrayals, and close calls for Traitors narrowly avoiding ‘banishment’. Brilliant cliffhanger moments remain a big feature, and the four-day break between Friday and Wednesday episodes definitely drags. Although it does allow time for the series’ growing following to analyse the Traitors’ work.
I have to say, I think this year’s Faithful cohort is flattering the Traitors a bit: it was only ever a matter of time before Maia noticed and called out her sister’s changed behaviour (why didn’t Armani ‘murder’ her straight away, the game is about being ruthless after all?) and it is a miracle that Linda still hasn’t been caught for her terrible acting. Minah—the only decent one of the lot—should be the only one left standing, and probably will be in a couple of episodes.
This brings me to my first issue with the format.
By creating an ‘us and them’ dynamic between the Faithful and the Traitors, the producers make recruitment harder.
Having already failed once, Minah will be forced to try recruiting again when Linda inevitably gets ‘banished’ (this article will age so badly if she ends up winning!). The increasing loyalty among the Faithful could inspire another rejection, which would put the producers in hot water if Minah came under suspicion at the Round Table.
This unlikely, but not impossible, scenario would necessitate the producers ‘rigging’ the game to create more disruptors—they had a 12-episode quota and you can’t have ‘The Traitors’ without any Traitors.
The second issue with the format is that it disadvantages the more interesting players. It seems unbelievable that, from almost 300,000 applications this year, they have still ended up with some really boring players. And they tend to last longer. For example, making three of the players banish themselves from the train before they even reached the castle was a great twist, but it meant they immediately lost three risk-taking players; whilst the less interesting characters, more likely to play it safe, were never going to get off the train.
Moreover, it seems the criteria for both Round Table banishments and ‘murders’ is anyone who has a personality and speaks their mind. This issue was especially obvious in the first season, where—I would argue—three of the most boring players made it to the final, and I think we will see the same this year, as the quieter players like Alex and Lisa are most likely to make it all the way.
Moving forward
I think these issues could be solved by introducing different roles and winnable abilities. Just like the family games ‘Werewolf’ and ‘Mafia’ that must have inspired the series, I would do away with the binary ‘good versus bad’ format. A player could be cast as a ‘gambler’, who steals money from the prize fund by correctly predicting the next player to be ‘murdered’. Or, by completing puzzles, players could win extra voting powers at the Round Table. These would not only vary the games but also increase the players’ selfishness, disbanding the loyal, mob mentality of the Faithful.
Whatever the method, I hope Studio Lambert is brave and experiments with new twists to the format. Testing who can say ‘I’m a hundred percent faithful’ with more conviction is only fun for so long, and it will be disappointing if the next season follows a safe, Apprentice-like pattern just bringing more of the same.
There are so many exciting possibilities for ‘The Traitors’, and I will eagerly watch what comes next.