We’ve reached that point in The Traitors season four when players will use virtually every shield, sentence or sneeze as evidence someone is a Traitor. But contestants are banned from referencing one really surprising topic in their arguments at round table sessions.
While The Traitors cast are on the show… they can’t mention that they are on a TV show. This includes talking about cameras and producers in the castle, or mentioning watching The Traitors on TV. That might sound like a small detail, but it actually has huge repercussions for the sorts of arguments that players can make at the round table.
Elen from season three of The Traitors UK told Yahoo: “We’re not allowed to discuss previous series of The Traitors”.
A deeply tense round table session
(Image via BBC iPlayer)
This rule makes the show much easier to follow for newbie viewers. However, it does mean Traitors players couldn’t bring up strategies they’ve seen on the show before. This limits the arguments they can make.
It seems players are also discouraged from speaking too much about production. This would include where the cameras are, or whether some players are trying to look a particular way on TV.
In the first season of the Australian version of the show, a player called Paul McNeill got very limited screen time, although he seemed very chatty in real life. The cast theorised this is because Paul kept referencing the camera crew, and so his interviews were hard to edit.
Surely, this is tough. When us mortals watch The Traitors, we constantly think about this. For instance, lots of viewers guessed Fiona might be the Secret Traitor because it was likelier a fourth Traitor would be female. Plus, the breakfast theory limits who could feasibly be a Traitor. Even if players are thinking about this kind of thing, they can’t talk about it at a round table in a way which would break the fourth wall. They would have to skirt around the topic by saying stuff like ‘I think you would make a terrific Traitor’.
A player couldn’t say. ‘I think X is a Faithful because they were sent into breakfast last, and that’s usually edited as a cliffhanger about who has been murdered.’
(Image via BBC iPlayer)
Traitors players can’t bring up anything that happened off-camera, as this would draw attention to the presence of the cameras. You with me? In season one of the UK version, the players suddenly turned on the Traitor Alyssa. It came across on TV as very sudden. However, it seems viewers missed a key moment. Tom to the Metro that before filming began for a round table, the cast were joking around. “We asked her to do an impression of Claudia, and she said, ‘Hello Traitors,’ and we all just were like, ‘I’ve never heard her say Hello Traitors, have you?” Oops. Alyssa’s impression and the discussions about it didn’t make the edit.
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Featured image credit: BBC
