There is something about January, is there not? You put a handful of parsley in a smoothie, you do more bending and stretching and running than usual, you eat lean proteins and complicated grains, you drink gallons of water, you begin to glow from the inside out. And – and this is a crucial step to the whole process! – you watch an evil little reality show from start to finish, crunched into such a short period of time that it feels like you are gasping for air. That is just as important as, like, ‘remembering to take vitamins again’.
The Traitors, then, which started up again last week. It is intriguing how quickly and how ferociously The Traitors became British legacy TV – it took about 20 minutes into the first episode of last year’s debut show, for my money (although it really cemented when a pink-haired magician ruined a perfectly good breakfast with: “Guys straight up, straight up: Alex isn’t a traitor, she’s my girlfriend!”) – and now we’re all having to watch, gripped, as it happens again. A castle in Scotland, some mask-and-cape-wearing, Claudia Winkleman’s Head & Shoulders contract. Wink-murder mystery, clumsy attempts at subterfuge, a mixed-age contestant pool. Nothing starts the year quite like it.
But while I’ve got you, can I also mention The Trust: A Game of Greed, 2024’s clunkiest-titled TV show so far, and Netflix’s answer to The Traitors? It’s a mash-up of a number of familiar-ish shows but done with so much shine you barely notice: set on a paradise island mansion that is half Love Island and half Glass Onion, involving some arcane card-pulling and scenes set in a vault, 11 strangers are entered into a quarter-million dollar trust and told not to vote each other out of it by former CNN host Brooke Baldwin. Obviously, that does not happen. Over 12 episodes released over three weekly ‘events’, we watch how much you can trust 11 people who don’t know each other but do want to be on TV a little bit. The answer isn’t particularly surprising, but it is entertaining.
