The Traitors (British TV series)

The Traitors (also known as The Traitors UK outside of the UK) is a British reality television series broadcast on BBC One, based on the Dutch series De Verraders, which premiered on 29 November 2022 and is hosted by Claudia Winkleman.

Following the premise of other versions of De Verraders, the show features a group of contestants participating in a game similar to the party game Mafia in the ground of a historic Scottish Castle. A small group of contestants become the titular "Traitors", and must work together to eliminate the other contestants in order to win a grand prize, while the remaining contestants become "Faithful" and are tasked to discover and banish the Traitors by voting them out, to win the grand prize.

After the first episode aired on BBC One, it and the next two episodes were uploaded onto BBC iPlayer, with each subsequent episode being available on BBC One only, before being uploaded one at a time to iPlayer.

On 27 February 2023, the BBC announced that the show had been renewed for a second series, with Winkleman returning to host. On 3 November 2023, it was revealed that a third series had been commissioned, as well as a celebrity version in the works.

Format
22 players arrive at a castle in the Scottish Highlands as "Faithful" contestants – hoping to share a prize fund worth up to £120,000. Among them are the "Traitors" – a group of contestants selected by host Claudia Winkleman on the first day, whose goal is to eliminate the Faithfuls and claim the prize for themselves.

On most nights, the Traitors come together and decide upon one Faithful contestant to "murder" – and that person will leave the game immediately. The remaining Faithful contestants will not know who has been eliminated until the following day when that person does not enter the Castle for breakfast. The group then take part in a mission to win money for the prize fund. In series one some challenges offered an opportunity for players to visit the Armoury – during which one player will randomly and secretly be awarded the Shield. In series two there was no armoury. Shields were hidden during the missions instead, and it was usually possible to see who had claimed them.

Holding a Shield awards a player immunity from being Murdered, but not from the Banishment Vote. An attempted murder on the shield holder will result in no player being eliminated by Murder.

At the end of each day, the players will participate in a Round Table, where the players discuss who to vote out before individually voting for a player to be banished. Players cast their votes privately before revealing their votes in turn to everyone once all votes are locked-in and may give a brief rationale for the vote. The person who received the most votes for banishment is banished from the game and must reveal their affiliation. During the game, if the amount of remaining Traitors drops to two then they will be given the option to recruit a Faithful to join them in lieu of committing a murder. The Faithful will have the option to decline, and declining may or may not result in them being Murdered immediately. If the Faithful accepts, they become a Traitor from that point on.

After the final round table, the remaining players vote whether to end the game. A unanimous vote to end the game is required; if there is even one single vote to continue, another banishment vote is immediately conducted, before repeating the vote to end the game with the remaining players. When a unanimous vote to end the game occurs, or when there are only two players left, the remaining players reveal whether they are Faithful or Traitors. Should the Faithful contestants have eliminated all the Traitors, they will share the prize fund, but if any Traitors make it to the end, they win the money instead.

Production
The UK show was commissioned by the BBC in October 2021 following the airing of the Dutch series earlier that year. The series was to be produced by Studio Lambert Scotland.

The first series was recorded in May 2022, and action took place at Ardross Castle in Scotland.

Presenter Claudia Winkleman was initially hesitant to host the programme but after watching the Dutch series became "obsessed" and jokingly "booked a train to Scotland".

Applicants had to submit a video application and go through several rounds of interviews, as well as a psychological assessment. Contestants were filmed constantly over a long day, finding out just before breakfast whether they had been 'murdered'. 'Murdered' contestants were driven away immediately and sent home, without being able to say any goodbyes. Contestants were assigned a welfare person to help with their well-being.

In May 2023, Studio Lambert revealed 40,000 people had applied to take part in the second series, in comparison with 1,500 who had applied for series one. On 1 September 2023, it was announced that filming had begun.

In January 2024, it was announced that applications for Series 3 had begun, with almost 300,000 applications received. The series was filming as of May 2024.

Critical reception
The series was generally well received by critics, who praised the programme for being "fresh, yet familiar", likening it to party games such as Mafia or wink murder. Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian says the format "feels like a revival of the early, more innocent days of reality TV", calling it "The White Lotus meets Big Brother 1". The Tab believed that social media helped the success of the show: "The memes and everyone live-tweeting it has played a big part in its success. Nobody wants to miss out on a reality TV show that everyone is talking about." Isobel Lewis of The Independent was more critical, however, saying it "definitely isn't a perfect reality show, or even the best in its genre right now, but it is pretty entertaining."

Viewership
The series saw an average audience of 5.4 million, with a peak of 6.2 million for the first episode. By the end of February 2023, The Traitors had been viewed over 34 million times on BBC iPlayer.

The BBC stated that The Traitors was the biggest new series for young audiences across all BBC content in 2022, with a 1.3 million average audience across the series and a peak of 1.5 million for the final.

Awards and nominations

 * rowspan="10" |2023
 * 28th National Television Awards
 * Reality Competition
 * The Traitors
 * Won
 * Edinburgh International Television Festival
 * Best Entertainment
 * The Traitors
 * Won
 * rowspan="3" |2023 TV Times Awards
 * Best Presenter
 * Claudia Winkleman
 * Pending
 * Best Entertainment Show
 * The Traitors
 * Pending
 * Favourite TV Moment
 * Wilf Webster revealed as a traitor
 * Pending
 * rowspan="3" |British Academy Television Awards
 * Best Reality and Constructed Factual
 * The Traitors
 * Won
 * Best Entertainment Performance
 * Claudia Winkleman
 * Won
 * Memorable Moment
 * The Traitors: The final roundtable
 * rowspan="2" | Royal Television Society Programme Awards
 * Entertainment
 * The Traitors
 * Won
 * Entertainment Performance
 * Claudia Winkleman
 * Won
 * rowspan="1" |2024
 * 2024 TV Choice Awards
 * Best Reality Show
 * The Traitors
 * }
 * The Traitors
 * Won
 * Entertainment Performance
 * Claudia Winkleman
 * Won
 * rowspan="1" |2024
 * 2024 TV Choice Awards
 * Best Reality Show
 * The Traitors
 * }
 * The Traitors
 * }
 * }

The Traitors: Uncloaked
To accompany the second series in January 2024, a follow-up television programme and BBC Sounds podcast was introduced, called The Traitors: Uncloaked produced by Listen. The first episode aired on 5 January 2024. It was hosted by Ed Gamble and broadcast on BBC Two. The final episode of Uncloaked which aired on BBC2 directly after the final received 3.97 million viewers.

Aftermath
Series one contestant Maddy Smedley urged others to think carefully about applying for the next series, and said she "wouldn’t recommend it for people for their sanity and mental health".

After the first series, the BBC launched a Traitors card game and puzzle book were released. In September 2023 a board game, called The Traitors, was released.

For Series 2, a Traitors app was released, allowing users to predict what will happen in the series and gain points for correct predictions. It was described as "the perfect synchronicity between programme content and interactive platform".

International broadcast
In Australia, the series was made available to stream on 10 Play in March 2023, as a companion to the Australian version aired by the network.

In the United States, the show is available to stream on Peacock, the broadcaster of the American version.

In Canada, the show is available to stream on Crave. The Canadian version of the series began on 2 October 2023 on CTV.

In New Zealand, the show is available to stream on ThreeNow, the same broadcaster as the New Zealand version.

In Sweden, the first series was made available with Swedish subtitles on TV4 Play not long after the premiere of Förradärna, TV4's own version. Many other countries have followed the same route.