The Traitors - BBC (& other networks in other countries) reality gameshow

Everyone agrees that this is the best thing of its type on TV, so let's give it a thread.

https://i.imgur.com/WglAP1Y.png

(even if just as a safe place to say that parliamentary advisors must be eliminated on principle, and this one in particular does not seem to be an exception)

psyched for this, season 1 was great

just hope they haven't brought in a load of "characters" and oddballs this time to "liven it up" like BB did. S1 was great partly because the folks in it were so normal.

Halfway through the first episode (first three are now up on iplayer) and seems like a reasonable mix of people - only big difference from S1 is that they all have arrived with gameplans, but that's unavoidable I guess.

Having said that and having finished episode one now, I do kind of hate two of the traitors. One of them in particular.

Kind of hard to see how this thread is gonna pan out though. Obviously I want to avoid spoilers but if the thread is a spoiler-free zone then I don't really see that there's much else to discuss. Ofc we could use spoiler tags but I don't trust myself not to click on them lol. I'll probably end up avoiding the thread altogether tbh. Great show though and I've lined up the first three episodes for watching.

Just finished ep 3. Is it reverting to one per week after this week? At which point surely the episodes are fair game for discussion after airing on BBC 1 and anyone wanting to avoid spoilers can stay off the thread until they've watched?

I was late to the party first time round and binged the entire thing in about three days - waiting for new episodes is torture

think maybe the best way would be to consider episodes "already spoiled" as soon as they air?

or as soon as they are on iplayer, which means I have 1.5 to catch up on.

Not as soon as they're on iPlayer, please. We don't have iPlayer in Ireland, and I want to chat with fellow Traitor enthusiasts.

Is it my imagination or do the contestants seem a little bit more telegenic this time round? One of the things I really enjoyed about the first UK series was how they were all different shapes and sizes and abilities. People seem a bit fitter and a bit more generic-reality-contestant this time? It could just be my imagination, though. I have only seen one episode.

Someone said something on social media the other day along the lines of "watch all us gays go all in on someone without checking their social media first" and I wondered what that might reference.

Broadcast plan is to stick to Weds/Thurs/Fri each week and have that weeks shows availability at 10pm on Wednesday. I broke and watched ep3 last night, but I'm not in at primetime on a Friday.

it's on TV tonight - so maybe safe to talk (with spoiler tags) from tomorrow?

watched the first three episodes - incredible ending to episode 3, cannot believe they would leave us for a week on that cliffhanger!

I have mellowed a lot to the contestants, still dislike two of the traitors though.

End of ep3 had me actually screaming at the telly, the utter bastards.

Ok, going with the spoilers now

Ash is just useless at being a traitor, she is lucky to have survived this far. If she isn't going out now then it's going to be an extremely awkward meeting (we're going to start an episode with a banishment THEN a kill aren't we?) but the clips showed them being fairly jolly so she may well be out? Paul has me concerned that the correct strategy for this game is to be a straight-up psychopath, the shock around the table when he received a single vote was the funniest moment so far. The mother/son twist is a good one, but I think there will be another secret ready to be revealed next week.

Agree with all of that. I think the next secret reveal is that Evie and Tracey are mother and daughter. There's been very little contact between them and very little focus on them - both are from Inverness (though Tracey's clearly not from there originally judging by her accent) but that hasn't come up at all

Stacey Dooley made the point on the Ed Gamble podcast show - which isn't really worth your time if you were wondering - that accent is a much bigger signifier that you would expect in picking these things out, that her and her mum never get identified as such because she's got a really strong Scouse accent so if true it could go unnoticed for a very long time.

I just thought with Evie and Miles chatting about both being vet nurses, she was quite inquisitive and would have sussed that Tracey and her were both from the same place. Likewise Tracey would surely have clocked the Inverness accent on a stranger...

I'm sure this is all above board and everything but I'm still intrigued by how they film it. They say everyone has their own "living quarters" but we never get to see them or what the layout of them is like. How do they film the bits with the traitors in the tower and the straight-to-camera interviews with them? How do the programme-makers manage to keep the filming of these parts secret from the faithfuls?

Guessing there is a diary room, like in Big Brother, and everyone has a turn to visit it each day.
I always wonder why they don't stay in the castle, but I guess they want to eliminate any chance of the contestants seeing each-other moving around, especially in the evening.

That was what I was wondering, because I assumed they do stay in the castle. Has it been shown that they don't?

Footage strongly suggests that they are taken away by jeep every night to somewhere else, and then brought back in the morning for filming.

Ivan and Rayan from last series are on Twitter and one of them said that they stay in a different hotel. You do occasionally see living quarters, am sure last series there were shots of people in showers and in their beds.

It's the Marriott at Inverness Airport, Alan Cumming said it in an interview.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/alan-cumming-enters-his-bond-villain-era-as-host-of-the-traitors

Anyway I'm assuming they employ some kind of Circle type lockdown in the hotel, all brought in individually and all doors shut while people are moving.

If room occupants are anonymised then you can't tell who's walking past your room, but you would expect some people to be (Traitors, victims) so footsteps wouldn't be weird. I assume victims are alerted through some kind of pager in their room.

I haven't watched the American one, didn't realise it was filmed here too, but that'll explain why my mum saw Alan Cumming wandering around the town one day.

I assume they all do some generic location shots of sleeping and getting up and stuff at a fancier location (maybe even the castle) to be inserted into the show at some point.

I think the precedent was set by The Circle, because the American one is filmed in the same flats in Manchester.

I really enjoy the staged shots of them in their "room", combing their hair, reading a book, sitting on the bed etc.

I'm watching the second season having not seen the first (so reading this thread peeking through my fingers in case of spoilers). Brian's completely inexplicable meltdown* made for some excellent TV.

*said with the disclaimer that I'm sure I'd behave in a similarly inexplicable way

Spoilers for series 1 which Merdeyeux can read at his peril:

Brian's behaviour reminded me a bit of Aaron's complete overreaction in S1 but that actually provided some humanity and redemption for him in the end

Nice to see they abandoned the iPlayer format I posted above after the first week despite me typing it the day after the BBC guy had said it.

Anyway, I'm enjoying this year but it's leaning so hard into social media trends and likes that I'm finding the editing super weird - which is making me notice other things.

The funeral episode last night must have been an editing decision after week 1, right? There's no way they could have known Diane was going to be such a twitter sensation before the first episodes aired and I find it hard to believe they would have centred any other contestant that way. So was it re-edited last week?

The inserts this year have been crazy, last Thursday there was a 5 second shot of a topless Charlotte in a bath. Wtf? In week 1 there was a similar shot of Andrew in the shower. So someone in the production staff persuaded them to strip off on set in the big house for... why?

The strangest piece has been in the Ed Gamble show. There's a section where the two latest contestants out read the list of Traitors for reaction faces. They're then interviewed. So last night, in the interview section, they made a big play and talked to Diane about being a social media sensation and read out tweets. Which means it's new/current. But... they're wearing the same clothes in both those sections so either they've been told to and the reveal was during filming, or the surprise at the reveal is fake and they're relying on the acting skills of an entire show comprising members of the public to be convincing (which they seem to be managing). Either of which are baffling decisions and only needed if you're pretending the main show is being filmed live (which the weather makes a nonsense) or that none of the contestants talk to each other between filming and broadcast.

Think Paul will come a cropper tonight, pretty hard, and maybe set up for it by Harry, who I think will win.

took me until episode 5 or 6 to realise that Charlie and Evie are two different people.

My guess is they tell them to wear the same clothes, but I guess we will find out from podcasts when the whole thing is over, because God forbid any detail of a television show go unpodcasted.

I only say that because I remember a big article someone wrote about their experience on Masterchef in the US, and how they had to wear the same clothes (and not wash their hair!) for a week while they filmed their episode and all the reactions and retakes and stuff.

I suspect the production team knew the value of the central contestant in the funeral task - it might actually be that they had a couple of tasks up their sleeve and may have decided not to waste the funeral task had it fallen on a weaker or duller player (and it's their editing pushing strong player narrative anyway to a certain extent).

The companion show is already a "visualised podcast" with additional podcast available from the same recording so pop is very firmly eating itself there.

What I can't work out is why the pretence it's the same time unless it is because surely everyone alive knows shooting and screening are months apart and all the contestants meet up after shooting is done - gbbo even makes a virtue of it FFS with the 'after filming' roadtrip montage after the final.

It would have been impossible not to have done the funeral task otherwise because it was all based on the slow death so they can't have switched it round; my assumption is that for someone less giffable they would kind of race through it and have extended the round table. Which brings us back to 'current' editing.

Well, no, they could just have delivered the murder letter and made it a regular murder and come up with another ruse to use the cemetery area at a later date, no?

(Am not watching tonight's live as my other half has had the audacity to make other plans)

No spoilers on tonight's, but what a great show.

I see what you mean about the funeral but it kind of needed the volume of contestants to make it a thing. If their remaining missions are divide and dissolve like tonight's then they're completely biased for late tasks so not sure when it could have swapped in.

surely everyone alive knows shooting and screening are months apart

I guess if you sat people down and said it to them, they would agree that they know it, but people are willing to suspend disbelief when the programme helps them to. I mean, realistically we all know the Hootenany isn't live, but you allow yourself to forget when you're watching it. It feels like they've opted for a more Big Brother-y feeling to make it more of an appointment show, to make people forget they're not watching a live show. But I agree that it isn't always coming across very clearly - it seems a bit muddled.

For me, it just feels a bit more forced this year, and not in particularly clever ways. Look into each others' eyes and say "I am a faithful,"? Not very subtle or imaginative as a way of ferreting out suspects, is it?

it's one of my least favourite bits, but they did exactly the same last year

It was spectacularly bad though, because all the Faithful said it normally, and all the Traitors overemphasised the 'AM' so they sounded like Sean Connery introducing himself in Highlander.

Lol. They did! Yeah, they are not playing it cool at all.

Some brave knitwear choices from Claude this evening.

Hi Uncloaked editors! Charlie and Charlotte wearing different clothes in the two segments last night.

Not sure Ross' strategy is going to work. Harry still playing a blinder.

Interesting nugget over the weekend that the British and American versions are basically shot concurrently so they don't need to break the sets up - so the funeral, say, was filmed one day for the Brits and the next day for the US. Makes it a fascinating set of logistics and arguably makes the airport hotel easier to manage if you don't know whether it's someone from your show or the other one next to you.

Have people been following the breakfast thing? Basically, it seems that in series 1 the traitors always had a shortlist of two or three faithfuls they were thinking of murdering each night. For the sake of building tension for the viewing public, these two or three were always the last to come down for breakfast in the morning (minus the one who was murdered, of course). The thinking goes that an astute faithful would have been able to work out that the last one down to breakfast in the morning would always be a faithful. It's a bit of a stretch to me, but it seems significant enough that the programme-makers have changed it up this time.

"Jasmine is getting really emotional." Yes, Zack, because you are extremely annoying and she is trying not to murder you for real.

I KNEW Ross was going to completely fumble his revenge

Stephen tried to instigate a "just vote without discussion and see where it leads us" and Kate said no and just started talking a lot and the entire concept was never revisited.

That would be interesting, tho BBC probably would find a way to stop it.

You could still have the discussion - people giving their reasons for who they are voting for - just try and stop everyone going "oh yeah" and piling in for the flimsiest and stupidest of reasons.

Yeah, it wouldn't make for a fun round table, but the whispering and recriminations and paranoia afterwards possibly would..which we'll never know. Maybe someone could try it in the civilian series? Though guaranteed to be "why don't they want us talking about them? Classic traitor behaviour" - I thought given how much they all seem to think Stephen is some sort of wise old genius, that would have been the best time to try something new.

one of the most successful Faithful on the Irish edition talked about keeping notes and referring back to them

And she was definitely less susceptible to the usual amnesia

It would make sense, like it's hard to remember it all when you see it neatly packaged on telly so for them it would be a hugely valuable thing.

One other dynamic shift this series is that because the faithfuls are all rubbish, there's been no need to recruit so there's been no need for anyone to focus on changed behaviour.

Are they allowed to make notes or keep a diary or whatever? I feel like that would help a lot.

Also it kept reminding me of Chang on the paintball ep of Community - "Anyone have an alliance I can join? I'm really loyal!"

I hadn't realised until listening to that Romesh radio show (thanks Ailsa) that if they said they'd like to be a Faithful then they wouldn't be chosen as a Traitor. I'm not completely clear on all the rules of the game, especially when they kept going 'if there even ARE three'.

Even though he mentioned it a few times, it annoyed me that Joe didn't keep hammering the Alan forgot he had a shield thing

In a show with very little to go on that's one of the few decent bits of "evidence" they actually had

Which Joe - Marler or Wilkinson? If the former, he still has time to bring it up.

btw what's with the "eyes eyes eyes" chanting when toasting/clinking glasses? Seems it's a european tradition to maintain eye contact that's making its way over here but does the chant come from anywhere?

maintain eye contact when toasting, that is.

I've heard people say it for many years here, not every time but just to mean you should make eye contact and for some reason they say "eyes" in that manner.

weird, I've never heard it before. seems quite aggressive, or it did on the show, and obviously superstitious.

btw what's with the "eyes eyes eyes" chanting when toasting/clinking glasses? Seems it's a european tradition to maintain eye contact that's making its way over here but does the chant come from anywhere?

It is a thing that some luvvies do, for sure. I have been around luvvies who do this.

Nobody here has heard of the superstition around not making eye contact during a toast? If you don’t, seven years of bad/no sex?

Probably many people have, I think the discussion was just about people shouting "eyes" without referencing that superstition, whether because of it or otherwise.

I kind of knew it was good form but not that it was an actual superstition. 7 years of bad sex sounds like it could be a fairly recent invention.

a real dilemma for people who hate eye contact but like sex

AFAIK people have been doing the eyes or bad fuck-luck thing for 20 years so it must be shorthand by now?

I have learned that the correct answer to "do you make eye contact?" for neurotypicals is not "yes, I have developed a number of strategies to make eye contact for the acceptable amount of time"

Nobody here has heard of the superstition around not making eye contact during a toast? If you don’t, seven years of bad/no sex?

Nope, never heard this. I thought the eye-contact thing harked back to some old Scandinavian thing about not being able to trust everyone at the table unless you looked them in the eye, or something. The only proper superstition I ever heard connected with toasting was that it's bad luck to toast with water.

I first heard the eyes while toasting thing in Finland 25 years ago fwiw

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/nov/06/notes-slid-under-doors-southgate-reveals-englands-traitors-obsession

Nobody here has heard of the superstition around not making eye contact during a toast?

Never heard of it. Mind you I don't, er, toast very often!

Well that was great television, but fucking hell. David you absolute fool. And Nick too, not as smart as we thought.

That was properly tense telly, that.

Yep. David saying he'd never had any doubts about the guy who forgot he had a shield and couldn't even keep a straight face when saying "I'm a Faithful" was incredible. And Nick, nooooooo

yeah wtf Nick! but Alan deserved to win tbh, or perhaps the others deserved to lose

I had a suspicion that someone (Nick?) might think Joe steering the narrative towards Alan and Cat might be seen as trying to save his own skin, and so it turned out. But I thought they'd go for Cat and Alan first before David and Nick get rid of Joe at the last round of the firebag thing. They were absolute Mollie-levels of deluded to scrap everything at that last round table

Amazing telly. Did David ever make a single correct judgement? I know it's easy to be all superior when you know what's going on, but to ignore all the red flags against Alan! I'm not sure why they picked on Cat first instead of him. And when he lost it at the end! Imagine how Nick would have felt if this had been a regular show for real money.

I do think the final would have been very different if they needed the money themselves. I mean, you would eliminate anyone giving you even the slightest hint of doubt, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?

Not doing hidden tags any more cause if you click on this thread now having not watched the finale you've asked for it.

Baffled when Claudia said "Alan started as Linda and ended as Harry” – had to Google. Speed with which my brain ejects contestants, or their names at least, after a series is over is quite ruthless.

I feel like David has squandered any credibility he may have had - impossible to now watch his BBC2 Empire series without constantly thinking, you ponderous, deluded twat - how can I possibly trust you on the machinations of the East India Company?

Felt a bit sorry for Paloma sitting in the front row of the final uncloaked. She could have feasibly engineered a mini career revival and some income out of a decent showing.

Paloma is hilarious, and I suspect Alan killing her was probably his finest hour, I don't think he could have kept up the pretence with her around.

lol xp

It did make me wonder what it would be like to have Jonathan Meades in there, obvious answer is that he would never agree to be on it.

Poor old Olusoga, his programmes are front and centre on my iPlayer home page today but I’m never going to be able to watch him again now I know he actually talks like that all the time, even when making (extremely dull) small talk.

I actually think David is the worst contestant of all time

Not just consistently wrong but a cause of wrongness in others

Knew he was crap though, so Nick was the big disappointment. Quite apart from him completely misinterpreting Joe's doublecross, I don't understand why he wouldn't choose to banish one more time for safety (although the point about it not being their money is fair)

Joe the true hero of the series

Wtf was Joe wearing though?!

joes odd socks in the final task was proper lol.
as per has been said, hero of the series.

Yeah, agree with Number. David at least was always "hey, don't ask me, I haven't a clue", whereas Nick thought he had it all figured out.

Joe the true hero of the series

Hmm. There was a way that Joe spoke to people sometimes that raised my hackles a little bit. Maybe I am oversensitive to these things, but I was a bit wary of him.

yeah he has that intense masculine aggression, physically and intellectually. it's all fine as long as he uses it with self-awareness and lack of prejudice, but it would be so easy for that to slip into bullying. to be fair I never saw a hint of that except to give Jonathan as good as he got, but it doesn't sit easy with me all the same.

No revive for the Traitors being Keir Starmer's favourite film?

That would involve giving a shit about what he says about anything

https://pictures.tribuna.com/image/81a9bb48-c5c0-45e6-b53f-ae529ef79300?width=1920&quality=70

Blimey, hating films. Belongs on the "hate / not accept" thread.