Georgina / 20 January 2025 / Categories: Movie and TV Shows, TV Show

The Traitors Season 3 UK

I told my friend I absolutely love watching the Traitors, the UK edition hosted by Claudia Winkleman and she said “what do you love about it” and then I had to think.

I replied I like the process of working things out and then she said “ah but no one is working anything out”

She said all she could see was a bunch of sheep all following each other. One person makes an incorrect assumption based on nothing and everyone else follows suit and it got me thinking about the format and the lack of game playing footage actually making it into the edit.

I didn’t watch the first season in the UK, 2023 at all then last year there was tons of marketing and press around Claudia Winkleman’s “Scottish/Highland” wardrobe which did peak my interest and got me tuning in here and there.

I don’t know if the hype spread all the way to Paris but in June 2024 Dior hosted its first fashion show in the highlands of Scotland for more than 70 years. When I watched all I could think about was “The Traitors”

Miss Winkleman’s stylist Sinead McCaffrey has certainly been on hand this season with plenty of plaid and fair isle thrown in the gothic mix of taffeta and tweed pared with chunky knits, kilts and knee high socks.

I digress this is not a formatted show around fashion.

The show if you haven’t seen it is set in a Scottish castle, the premise 22 people, split into two groups by the status they take on during the game, Traitor or Faithful work together to build the prize pot completing a series of outdoor activity challenges whilst trying to decipher who are the faithfuls and who are the traitors.

Each evening the group come together at the round table to present their accusations, arguments to try to sway the group, to vote with them to banish a traitor.

There is no doubt the format is clever but it relies entirely on the casting, which is where I think season three has completely fallen down. We are half way through and although 2 of the three original traitors have been banished from the castle, Armani and Linda there has been very little jeopardy.

We’ve got people saying nothing, people saying they’ve got no idea, no one digging or asking awkward questions, (they tried to show a bit of a confrontation between Leanne and Linda in the kitchen but it ended up with neither the traitor or the faithful being clever enough to steer the game.

And the only traitor left Minah gets hardly any airtime at all so we don’t get to see any of her interactions and whether the faithfuls are getting closer. It’s a bit boring when there’s only one traitor. The format has obviously not gone to plan this year because they have had to force faithful Charlotte to become a traitor.

The whole show would have been ruined I guess with only one traitor left, if the faithfuls found Minah the game’s over leaving with the BBC with a massive scheduling problem.

This show would be absolutely explosive if the players were able to think more independently, were more skilled at manipulating the narrative and could come up with more strategies and quick fire questions to unnerve expose potential traitors.

After watching one and a half seasons not sure the show format’s good enough this year to keep me hooked. For me it’s all about the cast and the edit. Too many followers and not enough leaders, talking for the sake of it, not enough sleuthing, playing the game or sticking your neck out this year for me.

Basically a bit boring.