Sky-high ratings, for a lacklustre series: The Celebrity Traitors has become too nice for its own good

Too many recruitments, frustrating confessions and an underwhelming murder in plain sight … this series has failed to take off

This article contains spoilers for the episode of The Celebrity Traitors on 29 October. Do not read on if you have not seen it.

What happens when a game that revolves around secrets and lies gets derailed by the truth? That’s what played out last night in the penultimate episode of The Celebrity Traitors, when, spoilers ahead!, James Acaster was dramatically confronted at the round table about his role in murdering Ross Kemp. After being grilled by Michael Sheen in a soliloquy that felt borderline Shakespearean, Acaster did something we have never seen before on this show: he fessed up to the entire thing, falling on his sword and revealing his true identity.

Acaster’s reveal is one of the defining scenes in a series that has broken the show’s sky-high ratings records. Yet watching the episode, and this celebrity series as a whole, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s been underwhelming. The grand finale could provide some big twists, but the show so far has felt tentative and lacked a certain spark. If Acaster’s confession had happened last year, it would have been merely a blip. But here, it feels emblematic of a series that, no matter what happens in the final, hasn’t quite lived up to the hype.

The selection of the Traitors is one of the most important parts of the game because these players have an outsized influence on its direction and, as a result, often take up more airtime. They also become the unofficial narrators of the show as they are the only ones who know what is really going on.

Part of the reason this series has felt lacklustre is because most of the Traitors were selected by the Traitors themselves, rather than producers who make a living from creating addictive TV. It all started with Richard E Grant’s epic blunder in episode one, when he told Joe Lycett that he was a Traitor and was quickly banished from the game. Not only did this deprive the audience of watching Grant and fellow Traitor Maya Jama scheming in the turret, but it set in motion a chain of events in which most of the Traitors were recruitments.

The problem here is that some of the recruited Traitors didn’t seem up to the task of murder and betrayal. Acaster made no secret of the fact that he didn’t want to be a Traitor, and Hannah Fry didn’t seem fully comfortable in the role, either. I have no problem with these players being authentically themselves, but it’s more fun to watch characters such as Alan Carr (from the 2025 series) gleefully plotting in the shadows, to witness supposedly “nice” celebrities mastering the dark side. That’s what the game is about.

The number of recruitments has also made the show feel stilted. Being a Faithful is a tricky task at the best of times, but it’s borderline impossible to have consistent theories or a sense of momentum when someone is being recruited every few episodes, rendering many events from earlier in the game null and void. The “original” Traitors making it deep into the game isn’t just satisfying for the audience; it’s also important for how the game functions. Too many recruitments can erode narrative cohesion.

As a format, The Traitors is close to being the perfect gameshow, which is why it has become a smash hit in almost all its international versions. But one flaw that’s baked into the game is that the biggest characters are often murdered or banished first, because they are seen as a threat to either the Traitors or the Faithful.

This has an even greater impact on the celebrity version because we already know the players. For the audience, there is a sense of disappointment when a celebrity they really like gets eliminated early on. (Myha’la, I will avenge you!) This doesn’t exist in the same way on the civilian version, because we don’t necessarily know what we’re missing out on.

I can’t shake the feeling that the celebrities are just a little too nice to each other. Perhaps this is because they have been on TV before and are wary of how they will be perceived, or don’t want to fall out with someone they might see again in a professional setting. As someone who watches many international versions of The Traitors, I prefer the charm of the British show to the American version: the latter is far more conflict-filled and glitzy. But with this series, we’ve gone too far in the opposite direction. It’s become too nice and Acaster falling on his sword encapsulates that.

On social media, there is a lot of anger towards Acaster, with some accusing him of making a mockery of the game. That was my initial reaction, too, and his confession has somewhat taken the wind out of the show’s sails ahead of the finale. But nobody watching at home can know how they would react in such a high-pressure situation.

The backlash against the comedian is really misplaced frustration that this series hasn’t delivered many of those “OMG!” moments we have been accustomed to. Even the murder in plain sight, usually a box-office highlight, felt underwhelming. You can fill a castle with celebrities and engineer all kinds of twists, but sometimes it just doesn’t pan out the way you would hope. That’s reality TV for you.