As someone based in the UK, the US version of The Traitors hasn't really grabbed my interest but I find this peek behind the curtain fascinating as it's a show I'm incapable of watching on a meta-textual level.
I find it so strange that nobody in the UK ever seems to try and assess why 'the show' might be engineering particular events to happen, but maybe that conversation is happening and it's just not making the edit.
Thanks for these insights Myles, really interesting stuff from the producers.
I agree with the weird tension between the stated purpose of eliminating traitors and the fact that doing so means new traitors get recruited thus forcing the faithfuls to start from scratch. It does feel a bit like the game is stacked against the Faithful. I wish there was a way to incentivize eliminating traitors even more so. Perhaps if you successfully vote a traitor out during banishment you personally earn X amount of dollars regardless of how you do later in the competition? Or if all the original traitors are killed, then the current faithful get a prize and a new game begins?
I didn't like Traitors season 1 at all and I love season 2. I think this post captured why - as much as I was rooting for Cirie, of course she streamrolled them all and that was that. This season, I came into it as a Big Brother (and to a lesser extent, Survivor) fan but knew a few of the other contestants like Peter - no Housewives background at all. It's so interesting to see the dynamics that have formed. I do wonder though if next year they will break from the pattern and not cast a Big Brother man and a Survivor woman as 2 of the initial traitors...
That was interesting, and made me appreciate the show more for what it is. The first season, I was entertained, but I thought of it as The Mole fan-fiction (a phrase I use a lot when a new reality show seems to be an imitation of a more established show) and was annoyed by the producer intervention. Obviously, everything in the show was designed for Cirie to win, which was fun but not fair. As I watch Season 2 come into its own, it makes sense that, like you're saying, the producers are making a suspense drama, and not a fair competition in a game show. (And that's been made more and more obvious in the latest episode.)
That "weird moral code" is an interesting part of the story, something that I find eye-roll-worthy on better competitive reality shows, but is part of the suspense drama here. I'm sure they wanted it, casting Rachel Reilly in the first season, because she had that weird moral thing about "floaters" on Big Brother. She was obviously going to be bombastic about being the most faithful of the faithfuls, and she did not disappoint.
As someone based in the UK, the US version of The Traitors hasn't really grabbed my interest but I find this peek behind the curtain fascinating as it's a show I'm incapable of watching on a meta-textual level.
I find it so strange that nobody in the UK ever seems to try and assess why 'the show' might be engineering particular events to happen, but maybe that conversation is happening and it's just not making the edit.
Thanks for these insights Myles, really interesting stuff from the producers.
I agree with the weird tension between the stated purpose of eliminating traitors and the fact that doing so means new traitors get recruited thus forcing the faithfuls to start from scratch. It does feel a bit like the game is stacked against the Faithful. I wish there was a way to incentivize eliminating traitors even more so. Perhaps if you successfully vote a traitor out during banishment you personally earn X amount of dollars regardless of how you do later in the competition? Or if all the original traitors are killed, then the current faithful get a prize and a new game begins?
I didn't like Traitors season 1 at all and I love season 2. I think this post captured why - as much as I was rooting for Cirie, of course she streamrolled them all and that was that. This season, I came into it as a Big Brother (and to a lesser extent, Survivor) fan but knew a few of the other contestants like Peter - no Housewives background at all. It's so interesting to see the dynamics that have formed. I do wonder though if next year they will break from the pattern and not cast a Big Brother man and a Survivor woman as 2 of the initial traitors...
That was interesting, and made me appreciate the show more for what it is. The first season, I was entertained, but I thought of it as The Mole fan-fiction (a phrase I use a lot when a new reality show seems to be an imitation of a more established show) and was annoyed by the producer intervention. Obviously, everything in the show was designed for Cirie to win, which was fun but not fair. As I watch Season 2 come into its own, it makes sense that, like you're saying, the producers are making a suspense drama, and not a fair competition in a game show. (And that's been made more and more obvious in the latest episode.)
That "weird moral code" is an interesting part of the story, something that I find eye-roll-worthy on better competitive reality shows, but is part of the suspense drama here. I'm sure they wanted it, casting Rachel Reilly in the first season, because she had that weird moral thing about "floaters" on Big Brother. She was obviously going to be bombastic about being the most faithful of the faithfuls, and she did not disappoint.