The Traitors (BBC One) is the Highlands Hunger Games. It is terrible – a pandering to our basest, most voyeuristic, atavistic instincts, an exercise in exquisite cruelty lasting 12 weeks. You’re going to love it.
Like all the best tortures, the set-up is simple. Twenty-two people are taken to an isolated spot – a huge castle in the wilds of Scotland – to complete a series of tasks together that will increase the prize money (up to a possible £120,000), which will be split among the winners. Fine! Dandy, you might even think! Except that three of the contestants are secretly designated – by host Claudia Winkleman – “traitors”. They get to “murder” one person a night to reduce the competition. The group can eliminate one person a day. They must try to identify the traitors and get them out because if a traitor survives to become one of the prizewinners, he or she will walk away with the whole sum. Thus are the seeds of discord sown with a lavish hand.
