Claudia Winkleman chooses the Traitors on the first day (Image: BBC / Studio Lambert)
The Traitors returned for its third season on January 1 – and One viewers are already loving it.
It’s the UK’s most talked about game show, seeing success since its first season which was first released in 2022.
In the series, it revolves around a group of 22 contestants (known as the Faithfuls) who complete tasks to win . Hidden among them are the “Traitors” whose goal is to eliminate the Faithfuls and claim the prize – all while (figuratively) killing them off.
At the end of each round, the Faithfuls gather at a round table to debate and vote on who, among them, would be betraying the team, to then eliminate their suspect.
Now fans of The Traitors are flocking to social network X (formerly Twitter), to reveal one big change they want to see. , which garnered 445,000 views, it read: “Petition for #TheTraitors to do a series where we don’t know who the Traitors are either.”
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22 participants try to uncover the three double agents among them (Image: The Traitors, Cody Burridge)
petition for to do a series where we don’t know who the traitors are either
— emma (@_emmaf28)
Commenters then rushed to share their opinions on whether such a significant change to the gameplay would add to the fun or defeat its purpose.
Some agreed, wanting to join the participants in guessing who the double agents are. One user wrote: “That would be next level suspense, sign me up.” Another added: “Brilliant idea – keeps everyone guessing, including us!”
Others argued part of the excitement lies in seeing the Traitors’ strategies develop and watching the Faithfuls get steered in the wrong direction.
“I think the reason why it’s fun is because you as the viewer have more information than them so you see the mistakes they make. Hiding the Traitors wouldn’t work,” one fan said. Another wrote: “The issue is that we see about 10% of everyone’s day together so we will miss crucial details that lead everyone to form their own opinions on who the Traitors are.”
Sharing the sentiment, a user weighed in: “Girl, do you wanna miss 80% of the game? The whole point of the show is to see how Traitors avoid getting caught and how Faithfuls try to catch them!”
Although they recognised the model would have to go through some changes – to achieve the suspense effect without ruining the fun – many of the comments seemed to enjoy the idea, suggesting subtler tweaks to the game format.
One commenter pitched: “That could work: maybe record the conversations in the Traitors’ Tower, and have them recreated by a group of actors? So the audience gets the fun of trying to figure out who the actors are representing based on the things that they say and who they’re talking about.”
Another proposed: “What if the Traitors didn’t know who each other was? They’d meet to decide who to kill but could wear cloaks and use voice changers. The drama would be unreal.”
Other ideas included delaying the reveal of the Traitors until the second or third episode, or even dropping the series in favour of ’s The Mole, where viewers are kept in the dark about the deceptive player until the finale.
The Traitors is currently airing on One every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and the first three episodes are available for streaming on iPlayer.