I used to eat, sleep and breathe
Big Brother back in the day, but I haven't watched any reality TV for at least a decade. No huge reason, there just aren't enough hours in the day. And I've never been that excited about game shows. There aren't enough hours in a lifetime for those. Yet word of mouth got me to take a punt on BBC's
The Traitors over Christmas. I wasn't expecting much, but three episodes in I was totally hooked. It's a thrill-ride of a reality/game show hybrid which drills down into that basic reality TV trope of being "true to yourself" while on camera and twists it ingeniously and then keeps on twisting it. It's dark and cruel on one hand, and wholesome and warm on the other. It's super fun to observe the contestants slowly unravel psychologically, but without the kind of nails-down-a-blackboard hysteria that made the reality genre so increasingly exhausting to watch back in the day. (To be blunt, you don't get the sense that anyone's to kill themselves or turn into Katie Hopkins after they leave the show.) There's a medieval Scottish Highland atmosphere to the series that's very seductive and an ideal host in Claudia Winkleman, who strikes a perfect balance between being coldly Machiavellian and warmly likeable. She doesn't make the whole thing all about her, like your Anne Robinson or Lord Sugar panto-villains would have done, but also manages to avoid the dead-behind-the-eyes, all-purpose enthusiasm of a Tess or a Davina.
Just four more episodes to go ...
Paranoia, guilt and sociopathy plague the 22 strangers collaborating to win cash – because the Strictly host is secretly ordering some of them to ‘murder’ at night. You’ll be hooked
www.theguardian.com
