That’s it then. The curiously pristine SUVs are back in the garage, the cloaks are off to the dry cleaners and your favourite hits of the 80s and 90s are safe, for a few months at least, from those absurdly melodramatic cover treatments. Yes, The Celebrity Traitors is over, having served up a finale that had just the right amount of intrigue, double-crossing and slack-jawed looks to camera from the terminally outwitted. We won’t ruin things here for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet, but for a full spoiler-filled debrief you can read Lucy Mangan’s review of last night’s drama here.
It was a fitting capstone to a remarkably successful first Celebrity Traitors outing. Fears that its big names might be too media-trained or overly deferential to one another – or just lacking the ruthlessness and desperation of their civilian equivalents, who actually need the win a fair bit more than the celebs do – proved unfounded. The show’s core appeal was still there, but in a supersized state. The casting managed to be preposterously starry – featuring at least half a dozen people who wouldn’t usually go within a 10-mile radius of a reality TV show – but also carefully consistent with the civvy edition’s usual mix of personality types. More broadly, the Traitors franchise is now in its imperial phase; a ratings hit in a post-ratings era, a format that it feels like everyone is watching and talking about, even if they’re not.
