The United Kingdom’s Celebrity Traitors came to a thrilling conclusion this week as the show becomes the most viewed program of the year.
Warning: Spoilers ahead, don’t read any further if you don’t want to know what happened in the show’s final episode.
The British and American versions of reality TV show The Traitors have both been a huge success, while the Australian edition got axed after just two seasons. The American version is hosted by the flamboyant Alan Cumming, while the British version takes a darker tone with popular presenter Claudia Winkleman at the helm.
This year the UK brought out a celebrity edition that’s been screening locally on 10Play – and its been a sensational program. This week the ninth and final episode had fans on tenterhooks.
The series began with nineteen celebrities heading to a Scottish castle to be greeted by Claudia Winkleman. Among them were some big names, the legendary Sir Stephen Fry, comedian Alan Carr, pop star Paloma Faith, Olympian Tom Daley, actor Celia Imrie, and talk show host Jonathan Ross.
There were familiar faces like sports broadcaster Clare Balding, actors Tameka Empson and Mark Bonnar, singer Charlotte Church, comedians Joe Wilkinson, Nick Mohammad and Lucy Beaumont.
Plus a few faces that you may not have come across before like influencer Niko Omilana, musician Cat Burns, actor Ruth Codd, journaliust Kate Garraway, historian David Olusoga and rugby player Joe Marler.
Vey quickly though we get to know and bond with all the players, but soon they numbers begin to fall. If you’ve never seen the show, here’s how it works. Claudia secretly picks two to three people to be ‘The Traitors’ while the remainder are referred to as ‘The Faithful’.
The players take part in a variety of creative challenges to earn money fore their respective charities, but at the end of each day they have to nominate which among their number they believe to be ‘The Traitors’. If they get it wrong they accidently evict a member of ‘The Faithful’.
Then late at night ‘The Traitors’ gather an pick one of ‘The Faithful’ to ‘murder’. When the cast reconvene for breakfast, someone is missing. The result is the crew dropped by two members each day. If the final three players are all ‘Faithful’ they split the prize money between the charities, but if a Traitor remains in their number – they take all the winnings for their charity.
In the first episode Claudia picked Jonathan Ross, Cat Burns and Alan Carr as the traitors. Yes- giggling, bumbling, bundle of nerves – Alan Carr.
What made the series so good – is the celebrities complete inability to work out who The Traitors were. They’re really bad at figuring it out. More than half their number are murdered or banished before they finally picked Jonathan Ross as a traitor.
Alan Carr and Cat Burns though make it through to the very final episode of the show alongside Nick, David and Joe.
Alan Carr threw everyone off the scene when he murdered best friend Paloma Faith in the very first episode. In social media videos where each banished or murdered cast mate finds out who The Traitors are there’s a string of celebrities proclaiming, “Wait a minute, Alan killed Paloma!”
While Cat was banished in the final episode, Nick and David follow Alan’s lead an expel rugby player Joe Marler under the false belief that he is a traitor. Leaving Alan in the mix means they forfeit their winnings and Alan takes it all.
The moment it’s revealed that Alan Carr is a traitor he crumbles, bursts into tears and apologises for his deception. His chosen charity, Neuroblastoma UK, will get all the prize money, with the final pot coming to £87,500.
An average of 11.1 million people tuned in to watch the episode in the United Kingdom – the biggest live audience of the year for a single TV show.
Channel Ten are bringing back the Australian version next year with Gretel Killeen as host, and they’ll be hoping for some of that ratings magic.
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