The Traitors ( TV Show)

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So some of you may have heard of this relatively new TV show called ‘The Traitors’, and if you haven't, you will. It's the next Big Brother....Who Wants to be a Millionaire TV sensation to fly around the world. It’s huge here in the U.K and it did well in the US and other territories. It was first muted by a Dutch production team but turned down four times in Holland before it got commissioned. It involved members of the public in the first two United Kingdom seasons and now we have the dreaded celebrity version here. I'm surprised they have gone early with the celeb version but I guess the eventual general public season three would be cursed like all reality TV shows these days with people that apply to go on it are self-aware and just looking to be famous and make a career of it, therefore skewing the game. The U.K celebrity contestants are a mix of the well known and not so well know, from sportsmen to actors, from YouTubers to academics. The diversity is similar, some old, some young, some ethnic some gay. In fact six of the sixteen are openly gay and a couple more look like closet gays .Why the producers need an overrepresentation of gay contestants is interesting. Maybe it’s to deter flirting on the show and so stopping that type of contestant alliance in a show packed full of disingenuous relationships. The set up is the contestants are taken to a stunning imposing castle in the beautiful Scottish Highlands but not to settle in as they will live elsewhere on site but not leave the area until the show duration is over. They have to do their first task on day one arrival, in this case digging in their mocked up gravestone burial plot dirt to find a small shield. The six that find it first are protected more in the game by that shield, as long as they have the shield. The rest have no shield. The next process is for the female host, Claudia Winkleman, to covertly appoint three traitors, without the rest of the players knowing. Those three are aware they are traitors and then have to plot together to fictitiously murder the remaining people in the house, the so-called Faithfull’s, over the season run. On the second show the first person is murdered – in this case a singer- after a traitor marked them for death and so removed from the show. But after that the first big twist comes when the remaining sit around a big majestic round table and try to uncover the three traitors at the table and vote them off but the one that gets the most votes is banished, whether a traitor or not. The show is flawed here as the vote goes around the table as soon as one name gets a few votes the others realises if they vote for them as well then their chances of them being voted off decrease. This was the case as a young black YouTuber(he. not one of the three traitors...) got most of the votes early on and the rest piled on. The other two black and one Muslim contestant did not vote for him. Black contestants being voted off early are nothing new on these reality shows. He could have made a powerful speech there and then that as a young black man in society I am used to be seen as suspicious by white folks for no real reason. But in the spirit of entertainment television he didn’t and was gone. The other ethnic contestants must have thought Ah! And that’s how the show progresses, two people leaving each episode. The winner is the last man or woman standing and the prize money goes to charity. In the non celeb version they get a hundred grand cash for themselves. The shows appeal is multilayered. It’s physiologically brilliant as the players have to lie, deflect, connive and plot against each other to stay on the show. The stereotypes of how the other celebs see their fellow celebs also play into the mix, much more likely to be friends or, indeed, enemies, in real life and so their real selves, unlike the Traitor version with the general public. They also have body language giveaway tells when they lie and the TV edit must cover up when Traitors are twigged early for being obvious. There are so many elements to the show that make it enthralling though. Are those prejudices we all suffer in life there in the celebrity world, like tacit racism and misogamy? Are you voted off for being black, ugly or fat or not being famous enough amongst your peers, or all four? The tasks for additional charity money are fillers to stretch the show out like a newsreaders facelift over multiple episodes but gives the celebs more time to build up a rapport to supply entertainment for the viewer, the most important bit.