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

Oh god fuck off with your smol bean shite

This "making memories" thing really winds me up

They really fumbled so many chances in the last few episodes.

Faraaz just absolutely catastrophic on every level from the moment James went

Rachel managed to get him to stop thinking it's her by stalking him/hugging him/leaning her head on his shoulder for 24 hours.

His moment of clarity when he was banished was lol though

yeah defo.

anyway i'm sure rachel would have done the same for stephen if the roles were reversed.

xp haha yeah

i feel like this could have lasting psychological damage for jack.

Finally the Roxy traitors reveal

can't even watch. might not watch again next year, i'm not sure i can deal with another blow to whatever faith i had left in human decency.

There's a reason why I can only microdose this

Bit anticlimactic

looking forward to mindhunter season 3 with rachel in it tho

The micro-expressions chat with Faraaz was vintage stuff

truly astonishing, it flew past but didn't she say something about people's jaws or something. thought phrenology was more a unionist thing.

it was that Jade clenched her temple.

i still can't get over jade eliminating herself by voting for faraaz.

She got annoyed because Faraaz voted for her.

for sure, so annoyed she didn't realise or care maybe.

Faraaz on opening the envelope: "Grandma's done me!"

It's "you" not "yourself". Jade, Faraaz, Stephen, sort yourselves out.

You clearly don't watch a lot of these shows. It's always yourself. More formal.

One of the things I like about Rachel is that finally, FINALLY, one of the traitors is just lying their way through the game, rather than trying to nicey nicey it. So much more entertaining to watch.

Didn't Minah do that last year?

This series was actually relatively low on yourselfs. I guess people had cottoned on to the memes etc

I predicted that outcome the minute they voted off Jade but I didn’t write it here so my 11-y-o is my only witness.

Didn't Minah do that last year?

Not very well.

there were a fair few yourselfs, definitely plenty afair. there was one incredible jack or james one, i think he cited a piece of evidence with 'harriet told us to look at yourself was number one'

I thought Minah was brilliant but I confess I can't remember what ultimately undid her.

Rachel still Rachel on Uncloaked. Time to go to bed.

i turned it off the second stephen showed his vote.

in a weird way the finales are sort of meh, idk. with the celebs one i never watched the finale even tho i really enjoyed the season.

I know what you mean but S2 finale was peak reality TV

yeah that one was really good. last night was the peak for this season, and that was very exciting tbf.

Heartwarming ending tbh

Even them talking on Uncloaked about how Jack didn't notice Rachel say "If I was a faithful" because he was too busy crying, and Faraaz was too busy eating blueberries, proves that these youths deserved everything they got.

And calling a 42-year-old woman "grandma", honestly she shouldn't have to put up with this shit.

yeah was mad that slipped by when she said that.

It felt like she just sort of corrected herself and couldn’t believe nobody even said anything. Jack fucked it not just throwing his hat in with Faraaz, I’m glad he didn’t have to be in a final two with Stephen, genuinely think he would have had a breakdown.

i think it was maybe a bit foolish of faraaz to try to plan two steps ahead, but yeah. jack changing his vote also messed it up. agree that it would have been even worse if he'd 'won' then realised he'd been betrayed.

this plus not being able to run up a hill. worrying times for him.

can't even watch. might not watch again next year, i'm not sure i can deal with another blow to whatever faith i had left in human decency.

Same, get enough “watching fucking awful people win” in real life, don’t need it in my light entertainment too.

Daughter was working tonight so didn't start watching until half ten as she wanted to watch it with me

Despite Rachel winning I did think it was heartwarming to see Stephen stick to his morals and not betray Rachel, even though he must have known Jack would have voted Rachel.

And yeah, kind of incredible no-one picked up on Rachel saying "If I was a Faithful..." except of course with these Faithfuls it's absolutely not incredible at all.

I think tbf to Stephen if he had gone with Jack in that vote it would have been horrible for Jack, ultimately. It was bad enough watching him stand there in the final moments, excluded.

That said there is some real nonsense on social media like "it's truly amazing that in a show that's about lying and backstabbing, loyalty and honesty have won the day".

Yeah, would have been much worse for Jack. Thinking he'd won a share of the money only for Stephen to say "I'm a Traitor"

there is some real nonsense on social media like "it's truly amazing that in a show that's about lying and backstabbing, loyalty and honesty have won the day".

like Stephen didn't think long and hard about double-crossing Rachel. like Rachel wouldn't have thought of doing the same to him if she wasn't backed into a corner and compelled to trust him.

Yeah, Stephen very much had a vibe of "do I want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder?"

Finally caught up with this and I can open the thread. Really enjoyed the final TBH, I know they kept us in more suspense than was necessary about whether Stephen was going to betray Rachel, but it was clear they had won it as soon as Jade was banished and it would have been an unbelievable twist for Stephen to turn on her. Happy for Stephen, not fussed about Rachel, it was just good drama.

One thing I noticed this season is that they've done away with the cutaways of the contestants doing an activity, like Charlotte in the bath last year. This is obviously good in removing the perviness a bit but they would've had a great choice with Matthew (if you haven't seen his instagram, uh NSFW warning - https://www.instagram.com/headstandmatty - Also they didn't do the "I am a faithful" thing, which I always found a bit hammy and weak. Overall it's been an entertaining series with some nice new gimmicks and the challenges have been better too, though still the weakest bit we do need them for character development.

Also apparently Traitors Ireland is now - FINALLY - on iPlayer.

I was trying to think of a twist for next year and I think I've got it.

It starts with two teams of two traitors. Neither are aware the other exists. Murders only happen if they both nominate the same victim. Once one of them is banished they are merged - the team of one gets told they must recruit but instead of getting who they want they get the the other team.

I don't think it would last very long, so the potential for lack of early murders wouldn't have much impact.

One thing I noticed this season is that they've done away with the cutaways of the contestants doing an activity, like Charlotte in the bath last year

I think you missed Matt in the shower!

They showed it right before he got banished, just like they showed Tom Daley in the shower right before he got murdered.

Beware the sins of the flesh.

As regards how the game works and the format etc, again this may be my biase speaking, but didn't it seem like they were p keen to at least give Stephen and Rachel a good long run? A lot of the games and exercises completely messed with the heads of the faithfuls, like the ask the traiters a question, the thing where they answered "who would be the best traitor" etc while all were hidden in boxes, and the dagger.

I feel like in other years the games helped the faithful a bit more, the fact there was no recruitment and two traitors won is not entirely down to them both being good.

I think I agree. There has even been a kind of forced recruitment before, but this time they were allowed to decide to keep it just the two of them. Mind you, a recruit almost always ends up under a bus.