Member-only story

How I’d Make ‘The Traitors’ The Best Show On TV

Richard Cook
9 min readDec 21, 2022

--

The Traitors is a TV reality game show currently running on the BBC. It’s become the latest must-watch television, with #TheTraitors trending on Twitter each evening as viewers tune in for the latest shocking developments.

The premise is simple: 22 strangers enter a castle in Scotland and compete in a series of tasks to build up a prize fund. The twist is that each night a secret cabal of players (the ‘traitors’) will murder one player, removing them from the game. And then, each day, the players get the chance to banish a player they believe to be a traitor, with dramatic arguments taking place across a big round table.

Claudia Winkleman hosts, in increasingly-elaborate knitwear.

You can see why a show like this would be a winner. The ‘death game’ stakes of The Hunger Games meets the task-based antics of The Apprentice, with the bitchy back-stabbing of Big Brother. It’s a melting pot of winning reality tropes blended with a formula guaranteed to generate compelling twists and turns.

It’s not perfect, however. But before we get to that, I’d like to take a step back and talk about your friend and mine, board games.

The Traitors is a social deduction game.

--

--

Richard Cook
Richard Cook

Written by Richard Cook

Professional cynic (but my heart's not in it)

Responses (1)