The Traitors will not be hiding another turncoat in the cast after the fourth series of the BBC show introduced the divisive new twist to the game.
The premiere episode saw Claudia Winkleman select three Traitors viewers would be privy to, as well as a secret fourth whose identity was kept from us, for the first few episodes at least.
The twist included a series of finickity new rules and regulations to the game, such as that the secret Traitor would supply the main turret with a kill list, which resulted in Maz being up for murder time and time again.
The change also injected some mystery into the post-roundtable reveal, which is perhaps the most tedious element of the show for us all-knowing viewers (if we don’t count those energetic finale episode missions, maybe).
But the top brass at Traitors HQ has now said that the twist was a one-time thing and that the format is strong enough to go it alone with the regular variety of Traitors.
Stephen Lambert, head honcho at production company Studio Lambert, discussed the twist at an industry event, after it had been implemented across both the US and UK versions – in the former, the secret Traitor was Travis Kelce’s mum Donna.
In the UK version, it was once the poor game-player Hugo had been dispatched from the roundtable that the scarlet-cloaked Traitor was sensationally revealed to be scene-stealer Fiona, a 62-year-old local government officer who played the game as giddy and scatterbrained.
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Lambert detailed how the secret Traitor arose as a means of differentiating the civilian version from the celebrity spin-off, which had just aired in the UK beforehand, to rave reviews and ratings.
‘We introduced the idea of a secret Traitor as a way of doing something that was different, but it wasn’t something we wanted to keep going with,’ he said at the University of East Anglia in Norfolk, according to entertainment website IGN.
‘A good format is something that’s designed in such a way that people feel a sense of familiarity with it, which is why they want to keep coming back to come back and watch it.
‘But intrinsically it’s designed so that there’s sufficient variation – partly, obviously, through the change of cast, but also you want to make little changes within it.’
He continued: ‘There have been other shows which have done something similar, where the audience didn’t know who the mole was and the trouble is you’re completely a victim of the edit and that doesn’t feel very satisfying.’
Celebrity Traitors will return on the BBC in 2026. The Traitors will be back in 2027.
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