Episode five of The Celebrity Traitors ended in a tense deadlock between either actor Mark Bonnar or historian David Olusoga being banished, but there is one major twist that the show is severely lacking. It’s time for a traitors trio switch-up.
Usually by this point in the proceedings, there’s been a bit of movement in the turret and at least one traitor has been unhooded. But, as Claudia revelled in telling the contestants in Wednesday's episode, they are now down from 19 contestants to 12, meaning they’ve lost seven people with not even a sniff of a real traitor in sight.
The actual traitors – Alan Carr, Jonathan Ross and Cat Burns – are all the original choices with not one switch among them yet. They’re loving it all, of course; Jonathan is spinning spin faster than the final setting on a washing machine, Alan’s managed to curb his giggling (and lower his voice) to push the spotlight onto other faithfuls and Cat’s staying nicely under the radar, too.
But as entertaining as the three villains have been to watch, they’ve relaxed into it and as a result, they’re becoming complacent and over-confident.
As they’ve managed to get away with it for so long, the stakes have become lower for them. And as Jonathan managed to cleverly dodge being outed as a traitor last week, his game-play in particular has become that little bit smugger.
The terrible three need to be reminded who really runs the game – it’s Claudia. Our gothic host needs to inject some more drama into the real “big dogs” at the top so it doesn’t get stale or start to stall, as it’s currently headed.
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There doesn’t even need to be a revealing of a traitor to throw in a much-needed recruitment. There are always fireworks when one faithful is summoned and attempted to be seduced into becoming a traitor, so why haven’t we seen this moral conundrum in the series yet?
Who’s to say there can’t be four traitors? Or surely Claudia has the power to demote a traitor back to a faithful? What a plot twist that would be.
At the very least, they could employ the same killer move that was pulled in The Traitors series three, when Francesca was given the power to find out the true nature of one contestant, leading her, devastated, to uncover that one of her best friends, Charlotte – the Welsh-accent faking one, remember? – was actually a traitor.
Now that was appointment TV – and the screams can still be heard echoing through living rooms around the nation.
There are just four episodes of The Celebrity Traitors left, and the ante needs to seriously be upped before the finale next month. Claudia needs to get more Squid Game with the traitors – after all, they’re also just mere pawns in her macabre game, too.
The Traitors series 1-3 are streaming on BBC iPlayer. The Celebrity Traitors airs on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
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