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‘The Traitors’ Series Review: What If 'Bigg Boss' Went To Private School?
Hosted by Karan Johar, 'The Traitors' is streaming on Amazon Prime Video with new episodes dropping every week.
The Traitors, the global murder-mystery-meets-reality show sensation, has arrived in India. The popular series first originated in the Netherlands in 2021, before being adapted for the UK and the US, where it became a smash hit in both countries.
The Mafia-inspired concept is simple. 20 contestants are whisked away and locked up in a schmancy palace. Three of them are appointed “traitors”. Every night the trio secretly gets together and decides to “kill off” a contestant. We, the audience, know who the traitors are. The other contestants don’t. Everyone is a suspect. At the end of every episode, the entire group also votes off the contestant they think is the traitor. If the “innocents” weed out all traitors by the end, they split a cash prize of one crore. If any traitors are left, they get the cash prize. “It’s the ultimate game of trust and betrayal. Here trust is rare....But dhoka is everywhere”, says Karan Johar who's clearly having a blast here as host and game maker.
In the British version, the contestants are a group of unknowns; just regular old fame-hungry folks. Whereas this Indian adaptation is more like the US version which features a cast of a who’s who of reality TV stars.
The participants here include a mix of actors, influencers, Youtubers, artists and healthy Instagram followings, such as Ashish Vidyarthi, Anshula Kapoor, Maheep Kapoor, Uorfi Javed, Raj Kundra, Mukesh Chhabra, Raftaar and so on.
The Traitors has an undeniably delicious format which demands multiple levels of games and manoeuvring unfolding at once. There’s actual strategy involved. You can see why it’s so popular; everyone suspects everyone, you have to be liked by all and doubted by none. Stand out, but fit in. Make waves, but not too many. Play dumb, but not too dumb. The more innocent you seem, the more suspicious you are. Traitors must cast doubt on others, but they also can’t afford to kill off those who vocally suspect them or else they risk being discovered. If an innocent defends someone they feel is wrongly accused, they risk appearing as a traitor. The traitors can even choose to appoint new traitors halfway through the season and turn the game on its head entirely.
Having watched the three episodes out so far, I’m all for appointment viewing, guilty pleasure TV, and the If-Bigg Boss-went-to-private-school-tonality. But whoever decided to make these 70-minute-long episodes clearly hates people. The fun of the format and winning moments of personality clashes risk getting drowned out in the toomuch-ness of the tiring duration.
Still the broad beats work well. Every episode opens with the big reveal of who’s been murdered followed by new physical challenges and activities for cash prizes, each one designed to seed more mistrust within the group, ending with easily the juiciest part of each episode: the "Circle Of Shaq", where the entire group hash out their top suspects, choosing who to disqualify.
The problem is the long stretches between these segments, of repetitive dull debriefing, irritating intermingling and bland bickering. It’s clear the contestants have been encouraged to discuss their doubts to death which detracts from the fun of the would be detective work rather than add to it. It’s partly because of the number of contestants thus far. There are too many permutations and combinations and equations to follow and care about. One suspect things will get more enjoyable later in the season when the herd is thinned out and we have fewer figures to focus on.
Of the mixed bag of contestants, those who take the show too seriously risk coming across as silly and those who don’t seem to care are uninteresting. Raj Kundra seems glad to have even been included, Raftaar is just down to have a good time, and Mukesh Chhabra looks like he’d rather be literally anywhere else. Instead, it’s the lovably extra reality TV veterans, like Maheep Kapoor and Uorfi Javed, who know how to serve the drama, create moments and amp it up for the camera. Above all, it’s Apoorva AKA Rebel Kid who’s the firecracker here. Apoorva knows how to perform, bring the jokes and be in on them without ever being the butt of one.
But it’s in Ashish Vidyarthi I found my spirit animal. The talented actor, who’s never truly got his due, seems to take a nap on camera at least once an episode whilst everyone else is busy bickering... hard relate. Right there with you, Ashish.