The Traitors fans are on tenterhooks as the thrilling murder-mystery game show nears its grand finale.
The programme pits two teams, the Faithful and the Traitors, against each other in a bid to win up to £120,000. Each evening, contestants have the opportunity to “banish” a player, revealing their allegiance.
The Traitors then have the choice to “murder” one of the Faithful. However, TV star Richard Osman has pointed out a “big issue” with the format.
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The 54-year-old thinks that contestants are more inclined to get rid of those with the “best personalities”, rather than the quieter cast members. He highlighted communications director Yin, who was the first contestant to be eliminated after claiming she was skilled at analysing body language.
Speaking on The Rest Is Entertainment, he said: “The big issue with this show, if you’re a producer, is you tend to lose your best personalities very, very early on, because those are the people you would vote out. You never think ‘I’ll tell you who we’ll vote out, the boring guy in his early forties who hasn’t done anything or said anything and doesn’t seem to have any insight into human nature.”
Co-host and journalist Marina Hyde chimed in: “They don’t get voted out of anywhere. Everyone’s got 15 of them in their office.”
Richard went as far as saying the entire concept of the game “doesn’t really work” as it protects quieter players. He continued: “The lovely thing about The Traitors is that it’s a huge hit but the format doesn’t really work because there is absolutely no reason why you would vote off the stupid people.
“So season, after season, after season, you end up with people with no insight at all. Often people with no insight are also people with not the greatest personalities either. So that happens time after time, that is a big flaw.”
Richard highlighted another “big flaw” concerning what happens if the original Traitors are identified early on by the Faithful. Nonetheless, he indicated the showrunners could intervene by adding new Traitors into the mix, reports the Mirror.
On the flip side, he acknowledged: “The early weeks of it, like the early games in a set of tennis, are meaningless. If you get a Traitor out in week one, you might as well not, because they are going to immediately get replaced.”
“You might as well, for the first three weeks, just get rid of people who annoy you. Despite those flaws, I still find it an incredibly compelling TV show.”
Despite these criticisms, Richard admitted he’s hooked on the programme: “You might as well, for the first three weeks, just get rid of people who annoy you. Despite those flaws, I still find it an incredibly compelling TV show.”
Now in its third series, The Traitors has become a huge hit for the BBC, with over 10 million people reportedly watching the launch episode. A celebrity series has already been announced with speculation growing over an “all-stars” edition.
The Traitors finale airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 8.30pm tonight.