Unsubtle looks, over-performance, gasping – these Traitors don’t seem capable of making it to the last leg

Another cast of mild eccentrics enter the castle for a game of deception that’s now feeling quite familiar

Few television moments beat last year’s finale of BBC One’s surprise hit, The Traitors. It had everything: a self-destructive mistake, an emotional betrayal, and a final, visceral, release. “I’m the best Traitor in the world!” the winner yelled into the night, champagne in hand. So how do you top that? That’s the task for Claudia Winkleman and co as The Traitors returns with expectations higher than ever.

“New year, whole new game,” announces Winkleman, peering out from beneath her signature fringe. But of course it all feels quietly familiar: the same arrival by steam train, the same castle accommodation, the same twists and turns. Among the contestants this year are a window cleaner with a fear of heights, a former British diplomat, the (now customary) doctor, and a pair of sisters. Then there are the contestants hiding a secret: the Anglican priest who has stripped off the dog collar, the Londoner who is (for inexplicable reasons) faking a Welsh accent, and the ex-soldier who is masquerading as a nail technician, wearing a pink suit and calling herself “assassin Barbie”. All in all, another cast of mild eccentrics.

And The Traitors lives and dies on its casting. The tasks, used by the show both to raise money in the prize pot and pad out the runtime, are very much secondary. Because The Traitors is, in effect, a parlour game played out on an elaborate stage; the most important element is the interpersonal dynamics. Who will get mysteriously emotional at the wrong moment? Who will develop an irrational distaste for a fellow faithful? And who will be the bloodhound who – intentionally or otherwise – picks up the traitors’ scent? As the players progress through the game, the emotions build towards a crescendo.

But, as for this opening episode, things start in a rather jolly way. “I just love a good murder,” the minister reveals. “I’m a priest, not a saint.” At its essence, The Traitors is a very simple game, and the first two series – both of which concluded in sensational finales – maintained that simplicity. The key, for producers, is to chaperone the right characters through to the showdown, so that the result is still in the balance, the jeopardy real. But along the way, there are going to be twists and turns. Here, three contestants are ejected from the train before it’s even left the station, but one suspects that, having seen previous editions, those players are making a calculated gamble. Sometimes banishment isn’t permanent.

This third season of The Traitors is, naturally, more self-aware. Contestants know the various gameplans employed, know that the producers keep several cards up their sleeves. There is a sense that competitors want to guarantee more screentime by playing games within the games, presumably at the encouragement of the production team. There is still the natural excitement at entering the arena (“It’s giving reading,” one player exclaims, when she walks into the library), but tinged with increasing cynicism. After all, this is not a game of random chance: shrewd players know that the real, political, game doesn’t start for several episodes. Until then, you just have to cling on for dear life.

Viewers watching this first episode will be left fearing for Winkleman’s chosen trio of Traitors. “I loved every minute of it,” one of them says. “Am I bad?” The answer is “yes, at being a Traitor”. Unsubtle looks, teary over-performance, near-audible gasping: this doesn’t look like a team capable of making it to the last leg. And yet, the best Traitors of seasons one and two – Wilf and Harry – made equally inauspicious starts. They grew into the game and began to edge out their teammates. And that’s what makes The Traitors so compelling. The characters, who are trying to be characters at the beginning, will slowly be drawn back into ragged, fallible humanity.

Claudia Winkleman and the fringe are back (BBC / Studio Lambert)

“Things are a little different this year,” Winkleman announces at the roundtable. And there are tweaks to the game’s structure, sly changes designed to move the odds in favour of the show’s antiheroes. How that impacts the denouement remains to be seen. For now, The Traitors has set the stage for another season of backstabbing and blithering, perpetrated by a charming yet shifty dramatis personae.