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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think "The Traitors" is the biggest load of guff on TV?

243 replies

MasterBeth · 02/01/2025 21:11

It's stupid. There's no game at the heart of it. It's like Deal Or No Deal for prime time.

OP posts:
PuppyMonkey · 03/01/2025 09:20

I find it a very entertaining programme, I enjoy watching how the game plays out and how seriously the contestants take it, while viewers at home can laugh and get cross about how naive/clever/annoying particular characters are. It pans out differently on every series I’ve watched, including the US and Australian ones. I find it pretty addictive. I bloody love Four in a Bed as well if that helps! Grin

KimberleyClark · 03/01/2025 09:23

alwsysri · 02/01/2025 21:18

Can’t be that bad if it’s on series 3.

Name a show that you do like OP.

There have been 11 series of Love Island and that is absolute shite.

ChristmasFluff · 03/01/2025 09:30

I don't like it, but it's probably too highbrow for me, as I am a huge fan of Love Island.

I somehow manage to deal with this by not watching it.

lolly792 · 03/01/2025 09:33

Well, the players do determine the outcome, as they vote to eliminate players! And it can be interesting to see how some players operate and influence others and the whole groupthink thing. I remember a few round tables where there was a very clear shift through the discussion, with players who weren't in the frame at all ending up being booted off because players were changing others' minds!

But of course we all know none of the discussion is based on facts or knowledge. I don't know where the OP is getting the idea from that viewers think it's all strategy. Some of it is, particularly in the later stage of the game; a lot of it isn't.

Sounds to me like the OP needs to stop feeling obliged to watch with their family!

Redcrayons · 03/01/2025 09:44

Loved the first two series, hopefully this is going to be just as good. Paul getting banished last year was brilliant TV.

It comes at just the right time of year, Christmas is over, it’s cold, nobody is going out and we just want some easy to watch entertainment.

Hopefully it won’t go the way of Big Brother and they keep the normals on it.

JassyRadlett · 03/01/2025 09:50

I do think the casting really changes things - this series people have signed up knowing that millions will be watching and talking about them because it's proper event TV in the way that very few things are these days - unlike say the first series - so you're going to get a very different group of contestants and I think over time that can really erode what makes a show good.

That said I love watching people's (stated) thought processes, motivations etc and in particular just how wrong people are about other people, their inability to allow for reactions and thought processes that might be hugely different to their own (the reaction to Elen is a good case in point) and the general enjoyable fluff of it, and I'm not a fan of the genre more widely.

MasterBeth · 03/01/2025 09:53

crumblingschools · 03/01/2025 09:07

So why do you watch other tv programmes @MasterBeth? Why do you watch Taskmaster for instance? Four in a bed?

Any kind of "contest" - a TV quiz show, a football match, a baking competition, the darts or who has the best b'n'b - only makes sense if the contestants can affect the outcome through their own efforts and abilities.

Different contests demand different skills: general knowledge or perfecting a physical skill or cleaning a toilet correctly. It doesn't really matter.

(Then, you can even have deconstructed/absurdist contests (like Shooting Stars) where the absence of any connection between effort and outcome is the joke.)

Of course, the contest element is only the scaffolding on which the show or event is built. I guess I watch to see how luck and personality and circumstance has a bearing on the outcome, and how different people cope to win within the framework of the contest. There is a reason why coverage of the darts has a split screen so you see the player's face as well as the dartboard.

And then there are layers of tone. I watch Taskmaster because it's funny, Four In A Bed because it's cringey, Match of the Day because it's elite sport. But all of them share the basic rule that the players of the game affect the outcome through their efforts and abilities. If the contest is random then the format is redundant.

Traitors is like watching a football match where the teams play for 90 minutes then someone draws the winner out of a hat.

OP posts:
devilspawn · 03/01/2025 09:57

It's a poor version of The Mole (remake is on Netflix) which ran for years. The Mole is much, much better. Smarter and more skill and intrigue based tasks and far less repetitive. At the end of each round they have to answer a quiz on who The Mole is - obviously the mole knows all the correct answers and the person with fewest correct gets booted.

Schoolchoicesucks · 03/01/2025 10:03

I think it's great. I love how they get so "ooh we need to catch the evil traitors, I promise you I'm a faithful" when it is just chance that someone has been picked as a traitor and they could so easily be picked as a traitor themselves if the producers decide they need an extra one rather than any moral purity!

MasterBeth · 03/01/2025 10:20

Boredlass · 03/01/2025 09:15

Well millions love it. Go watch a documentary if you think it’s beneath you

Again, a total misreading of what I'm saying. It's not beneath me. I can watch dumb, low brow, no consequence TV very happily.

"Millions love it" is such a nothing thing to say, btw.

OP posts:
lolly792 · 03/01/2025 10:32

@MasterBeth you said it's a load of guff and you only watch it because your family do. Which seems to be the crappiest reason to watch anything!

Look, loads of us have explained that while we're aware all the discussion and strategy is based on no actual information whatsoever, we find it entertaining because of the group dynamics, the way certain player behaviour influences others, the way some players are all out for themselves rather than risking sharing the prize etc. The players do determine outcomes (you wrongly said they don't) because they eliminate players. When it gets down to the final group voting, it's even more interesting to watch their behaviours. We all know that the outcomes are chance because most players don't know who the traitors are. At the same time, some of us find the show an easy, entertaining watch.

You don't. So don't feel obliged Smile

MasterBeth · 03/01/2025 10:52

The players do determine outcomes (you wrongly said they don't) because they eliminate players.

The point is that they are not meaningful outcomes. They are no different to random. Keith was murdered. Elen was eliminated. Not for any real reason. Just... because. How should Keith have "played the game" to not be killed?

And, again, watching something because your family do is surely the most human, sociable reason to do so. It's because I want spend time with my at the end of a busy work day. I don't understand how this is unusual or controversial.

OP posts:
lolly792 · 03/01/2025 10:59

Absolutely! We all get that the outcomes the players determine are not based on any real knowledge or skill. Where on earth are you getting the idea some viewers think they are?

So you think it's entirely normal to sit down and watch a load of guff with your family - great! Crack on!

Other people have said they watch it because they find it entertaining, yet you seem hell bent on looking for deeper, more meaningful answers! 🤷‍♀️

TheGoogleMum · 03/01/2025 11:00

We all like different things. Personally I have no interest in love island, but i love the traitors!

happinessischocolate · 03/01/2025 11:14

MasterBeth · 03/01/2025 10:52

The players do determine outcomes (you wrongly said they don't) because they eliminate players.

The point is that they are not meaningful outcomes. They are no different to random. Keith was murdered. Elen was eliminated. Not for any real reason. Just... because. How should Keith have "played the game" to not be killed?

And, again, watching something because your family do is surely the most human, sociable reason to do so. It's because I want spend time with my at the end of a busy work day. I don't understand how this is unusual or controversial.

That's because it's only just started, whilst all this guff is going on at the beginning and people are leaving for random nonsensical reasons, others are making "friendships" and pacts and getting suspicious.

It starts getting more meaningful and insightful to their behaviour when it gets down to 10 people left

alwsysri · 03/01/2025 11:16

KimberleyClark · 03/01/2025 09:23

There have been 11 series of Love Island and that is absolute shite.

In your opinion, clearly others enjoy it.

ViolinsPlayGentlyOn · 03/01/2025 11:16

How should Keith have "played the game" to not be killed?

Act quieter, not drawing so much attention to himself? At the early stages the Traitors are only going to go for people they’ve noticed and can remember.

TeenLifeMum · 03/01/2025 11:19

Dh and I really tried it as “everyone” loves it, but the long drawn out dramatic pauses for something that literally doesn’t matter was just meh. We seem to be the only ones who don’t get it.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 03/01/2025 11:19

I think it’s good fun. Sorry OP!

chollysawcutt · 03/01/2025 11:20

I think if you are looking for meaningful outcomes then you're right, you won't find many in Traitors.

The only meaningful outcome is who wins and who loses. How they get there is largely chance (which, to be fair, is what a lot of games are based on).

Although I do think alliances play a big part in how far you go and what happens in the finale, and for that there are no 'rules'.

Rather, relationships and alliances are the soft stuff, the nebulous elements, the 'ephemera' if you like; gameplay that is strategically limited because human nature does not conform to absolutes.

chollysawcutt · 03/01/2025 11:23

(That's why I think they add the mini-competition elements in each episode. Not only to bank money, obviously so that there is some jeopardy to the outcome, but because these have a determined structure with a clear set of rules to follow. So that the chat/roundtable becomes the meat on the bones. The flesh of the story...)

MrsSkylerWhite · 03/01/2025 11:23

alwsysri · Yesterday 21:18

Can’t be that bad if it’s on series 3

Really? Big Brother, Love Island, I’m a Celebrity, etc.?

lolly792 · 03/01/2025 11:25

chollysawcutt · 03/01/2025 11:20

I think if you are looking for meaningful outcomes then you're right, you won't find many in Traitors.

The only meaningful outcome is who wins and who loses. How they get there is largely chance (which, to be fair, is what a lot of games are based on).

Although I do think alliances play a big part in how far you go and what happens in the finale, and for that there are no 'rules'.

Rather, relationships and alliances are the soft stuff, the nebulous elements, the 'ephemera' if you like; gameplay that is strategically limited because human nature does not conform to absolutes.

Exactly this.
And it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but then it's not compulsory viewing!

JassyRadlett · 03/01/2025 11:41

MasterBeth · 03/01/2025 10:52

The players do determine outcomes (you wrongly said they don't) because they eliminate players.

The point is that they are not meaningful outcomes. They are no different to random. Keith was murdered. Elen was eliminated. Not for any real reason. Just... because. How should Keith have "played the game" to not be killed?

And, again, watching something because your family do is surely the most human, sociable reason to do so. It's because I want spend time with my at the end of a busy work day. I don't understand how this is unusual or controversial.

I would disagree - one of the fascinating things about the show is that overall the voting/banishment decisions are worse than random - which says something incredibly interesting about the decision-making, group think and psychology of the participants.

Bleachbum · 03/01/2025 11:43

I think the element of random chance of being banished or murdered helps the drama though. It puts the contestants in elevated levels of stress with heightened emotions. This causes them to act in weird ways, sobbing etc and also makes them form bonds early on.

Remember, these people have applied to be on this show. They love the show and want to be on it for as long as possible. Not just for the money or screen time, but because they don’t want to fail.

For those who love people watching (there’s nothing I love more than people watching on the beach in the summer) it is very entertaining to watch.

I agree with PP’s though, the more popular the show gets, the worse it becomes as it starts attracting the people who just want to boost their SM profiles.