Ah, remember those hysterical evenings last December, when The Traitors took over British television? Nothing brings us together like an addictive new reality format and, by Christmas last year, everyone in the UK was obsessed. But is it a format you can keep going back to?
Much of the thrill of The Traitors was in discovering its mechanics for the first time. Those friends who told you about it probably abandoned their explanation halfway through and said, look, you just have to watch it. When we did, we slowly learned how the contestants, all holed up together for a fortnight in a big country house, contained a secret minority, the “traitors”, whose effort to avoid detection by the others, the “faithfuls”, created a complex parlour game of politicking, conspiracy and deception. It took us all 12 episodes to unravel its intricacies, and by the end every elimination vote was a screamingly intense psychodrama. After it was all over, we were all a bit exhausted. When the BBC got overexcited and showed the US version only a couple of weeks later, hardly anyone could face it.
