Celebrity Traitors Peaks Without Peril

The Hollywood Reporter says the BBC season is drawing record ratings while feeling short on jeopardy.

The oddest thing about The Celebrity Traitors, at least in The Hollywood Reporter’s account, is that the numbers have never been better while the tension has. In a piece published by the trade outlet, the current season is framed as a ratings high point that has still felt “unusually flat” on screen.

That is a neat little contradiction for a format built on panic, suspicion and the pleasure of watching famous people manage their own public image badly. According to the summary, Maya Jama, James Acaster and King Kenny are the “turret trio” sitting firmly under the radar ahead of the endgame. The problem, as The Hollywood Reporter describes it, is not visibility so much as jeopardy: something in this run feels missing.

Even from a short summary, the commercial point is clear enough. A reality franchise can be thriving in audience terms while delivering a thinner version of the thing people actually come for. In celebrity TV, fame can help sell the launch and smooth the marketing, but it does not automatically produce paranoia, betrayal or great television. Sometimes it just produces brand management in a castle.

The specific ratings figures are not included in the available item, so the scale of the increase is not possible to verify here. But the split The Hollywood Reporter identifies — bigger audience, weaker pulse — is a familiar one in celebrity television.