Weaver's Week 2025-11-23

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Consider this your final warning. We're about to talk about Celebrity Traitors, and it's an episode-by-episode rundown which is almost 100% spoilers. If you've managed to not watch the show, and are interested to find out what happens without knowing in advance, file this edition away and skip to the other news section.

Fifteen million people saw the final, many of whom are new to the show. Welcome. New viewers start here. We'll point out where they've recycled old ideas from previous civilian series, all of which are on the I-player right now, all of which are recommended.

Who are these people?

• Clare Balding, who you might know from Racing at Ascot
• Lucy Beaumont, BBC New Comedy Award
• Mark Bonnar, Catastrophe
• Cat Burns, singer
• Alan Carr, I Don't Like Mondays
• Charlotte Church, The Charlotte Church Show
• Ruth Codd, The Fall of the House of Usher
• Tom Daley, knitter
• Tameka Empson, The East Enders
• Paloma Faith, BBC The Voice of Holland
• Stephen Fry, The Crystal Cube
• Kate Garraway, The National Lottery The People's Quiz
• Celia Imrie, Calendar Girls
• Joe Marler, harlequin
• Nick Mohammed, Mr. Swallow
• David Olusoga, historian
• Niko Omilana, prankster
• Jonathan Ross, Sixthirtysomething
• Joe Wilkinson, Catsdown

Note that there are two players called "Joe", we'll always add the surname.

Claudia Winkleman turns round to show us the back of her cloak. It's got "Celebrities", complete with the quotation marks.

All of the celebrities scrabble around in their freshly-dug graves; in each plot is a shield to protect against murder. Shields are won by Jonathan, Joe Marler, Joe Wilkinson, Kate, Charlotte, and Celia.

On the way to the castle, Jonathan gets in a discussion with the rest of his car. "If you form an alliance with people, that might swing it in your favour," to which Clare replies "Yeah, some people know each other already." Ruth says "I don't know anyone", Niko adds, "We're in trouble!"; "No you're not" assures Clare. "And you've got two older allies here already," says Jonathan, indicating himself and Clare.

Claudia interviews everyone, and selects her Traitors from the surprisingly small number who said they'd be interested in the role. Jonathan Ross is first to be picked, because at least one of the A-listers has to be a Traitor. Cat Burns follows next, almost the exact opposite of Jonathan. The final traitor is Alan Carr, surely going to be unmasked by the end of episode four. Paloma mimes being poisoned, and Stephen asks the traitors to stay behind.

The first challenge for Traitorgeld is to pull a wooden horse along a path. Literally pull it, on wheels and everything so it can be burned at a firepit. Blocking their path are some gates, which can be unlocked by surrendering a shield - or answering questions correctly. Clare is surprised when it only accepts one answer; her premature pulling costs Charlotte a shield. £15,000 is added to the pot.

"It's classic Traitors" remarked Alan, a teamwork physical challenge with a vague link to history, and helped by properly sporty people. Tom Daley secured the win for the team with more sprinting than expected. (The answer to the Shakespeare question is never given: 6 deaths in Romeo & Juliet, 8 in Hamlet, so Clare should have guessed 14.

First murder is in plain sight: find the orchid, rub the pollen on your hands, and smear it onto the victim's face. Alan is given this diabolical task - but who will he choose?

Paloma Faith is murdered, in one of those highly stylised funeral marches (see also: the middle of series 2). At the graveyard, the players answer clues to work out which player belongs in each coffin. £4500 is earned from two correct answers, less than half the available money.

Clare and Ruth reckon that Kate is one of them. She mirrors Jonathan's actions when everyone turns up - Jonathan stands up, so does Kate. "Perhaps someone's been recruited" muses Jonathan; "perhaps someone's been recruited" shrieks Kate. At the funeral, Tom gives Kate the most massive side-eye.

"It is a cardinal error to theorise without data, and we have almost no data to go on," remarks Stephen Fry at the start of the round table. He goes on to suggest that Niko is the sort of person who would like to be a traitor, and he was put into a coffin in the missie; Jonathan says he thought that Niko's behaviour changed, but that hasn't been mentioned before.

The cliffhanger: how will the vote end? They left us hanging for one night over who was murdered, and six days over who gets a vote?

"Niko" is the name on Stephen's slate, and he's off the show. Faithful, of course.

Clare and Ruth discuss the suggestion that Jonathan wanted an alliance on the way back. Nick, Celia, and Cat hear the discussion, and word gets back to Jonathan in the turret. Ruth confronts Jonathan about this, claiming Jonathan said "We're all going to look after each other, this is an alliance." Jonathan doesn't deny it; the words are not precise, but he accepts the thrust.

After a shot to make all the gay men we know squeal, Tom Daly is murdered. The traditional picture-drop takes place.

We also get the annual "celebrities locked up in an escape room", with everyone accompanied by a Thrall demon. One of them is the comedian Ed Gamble, something that is of great interest to the host of Uncloaked and of very marginal interest to everyone else.

"I just farted, Claudia." Every news organisation has a profile of Celia Imrie on file, and we can just hear the sound of obits being re-written. Never mind "Nanny McPhee star passes", it'll be "Fart woman dies". The challenge is very Fort Boyard, finding keys and releasing celebs while they're being drenched and there are sparks and feathers. All £8000 was earned, with shields for Clare and Mark.

Joe Marler and Joe Wilkinson wonder if Claudia has pitted two "big dogs" against each other: Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross, one leads the faithful team, one the traitors. Joe Marler pushes this theory at the round table. There, Celia concentrates on who hasn't been talking to whom. Clare wonders who would be least likely to kill Paloma, because that's Alan, and perhaps that's a tell.

And Ruth continues to bang on about that alliance she thought Jonathan made, and hasn't denied. Jonathan flatly denies it, in a manner that comes across as deliberately not telling the truth. Sure, in The Traitors, anyone can say anything at any time, but this looks like gaslighting, and it tells against the player. Anyway, a very split panel sees Tameka eliminated. Another faithful gone.

Ruth goes. Jonathan deliberately goes for the triple-double-bluff, if Jonathan were a traitor it would be so obvious for him to murder Ruth that he'd never do it, so it's actually a good call to remove Ruth.

Clare is not letting go that Jonathan said the word "alliance"; well, "you have allies" is close enough. "Jonathan, I think you misremember quite a lot," says Clare; it's enough for Jonathan to start spreading gossip about her.

Today's missie is a classic communication problem. Half the team go into the forest, and hear banshees wailing. They're to sing the wail into the forest well. The team in the garden have lockets, which also emit a wail; match the wail you hear to the locket to win. Two added difficulties: lots of red herrings, and the garden team can only hear while dunking their heads under the water of the well.

Celia suggests putting a pussy in the well. She's referring to the nursery rhyme, "Ding dong bell, pussy's in the well," relating the crime of "Little" Johnny Green, and the useful save of Tommy Stout. But the way she tells it suggests something far more risqué, and we can again hear the profile writers re-arranging their copy. The team adds £4000 of traitorgeld; shields for Cat and Stephen Fry, though Cat's team don't disclose who got their shield.

Stephen begins the round table by suggesting "There is a way of doing this which is exactly the opposite of what Claudia suggested, and that is we don't have any discussion at all and write down who we think." But Stephen, the News at Ten is at 10 tonight, it's not ready to go on air at 9.37, and we don't want to hear Claudia Winkleman lecture for twenty-two minutes about how to do a paso doble.

"I'm very weak minded," says Kate Garroway.

Clare continues to bang on about the allies thing; Niko has gone, Ruth has gone, Clare feels very vulnerable, and Jonathan advances the world that Tom has Clare on his mind. In the end, Clare is gone. Another faithful. Even after she's been banished, Clare was recalling bad notes in her Verrarderboek.

Charlotte gets murdered, which strikes us as quite an odd call from the traitors: she's very vocal, and she's remarkably wrong. What world is Jonathan building? Feels like one where anyone outspoken or inquisitive is removed. And it seems to be working. Half-way through the series, and although all three have been suspected a bit, none of the treacherous trio has come close to being voted out.

Joe Wilkinson is conflicted: is his prime suspect Jonathan Ross, or is it Mark Bonnar? Cat reckons Joe's theory makes sense, Jonathan could be the leader of the traitors. Later she'll say that now is the time for a traitor to come forward, start adding something to the group, which is a very good explanation of what she's doing herself - and the group completely miss this.

Today's missie is the woodland traps game they've played in series two and three. In a variation she's borrowed from Channel 4, Claudia's Thousand Pound Trap. £7000 is won, and there are shields for Nick, Lucy, David, and Jonathan. David wonders if the whole "big dog" theory is a distraction, and Joe Marler is trying to keep himself clear.

As is traditional, Stephen Fry dominates the early round table, but from the voice of Jonathan Ross. "I think it's Stephen Fry; you have very gently sort of dominated proceedings so far, especially in the round table." Stephen does not defend himself, because he has no evidence, and he cannot prove a negative. Mark is accused for a) watching people at Paloma's funeral and b) banging the table with frustration last night. Joe Marler is accused of leading the discussions at the round tables, and lead the team off the cliff like a group of lemmings. But Joe deflects the accusation back to David, and has enough confidence that Joe's attack sticks more strongly than David's.

The result is a tie between Mark and David. A re-vote results in another tie between Mark and David. Claudia says that the banishment will be decided by fate, and she storms out of the room.

"The chests of chance"; one chest has a shield, the other is empty, and whoever picks the empty box is out of the game. It's Mark, who is a faithful.

Joe Wilkinson is voted out by the traitors, he's too persuasive and is beginning to unravel the trio.

Missie is to work out who the traitors thought matched certain qualities: get it right and put £5000 in the pot, and there's a shield for everyone on the winning team. "Who is the weakest player?" Kate. "Most two-faced?" Celia, and the biographers throw their pens down and say 'we'll come back after the final'. "Leader of the pack?" Stephen, or Jonathan.

Except Nick has colluded with Joe Marler to throw the game, so that the only players up for murder are Nick, Lucy, Kate, Stephen, and Jonathan. Is this Nick cosying up to someone he thinks is a traitor? And will Alan remember that he has a shield, because that would be rather important to someone who wasn't sure they'd survive every night.

Stephen Fry notes that the traitors don't get a lot of sleep, being woken up to film the scenes in the turret while everyone else is sound asleep back at the hotel in Inverness - er, er, their "individual lodgings" near the castle. Anyway, Stephen can get a lot more sleep tonight, seeing as how he's been voted out.

The others are going to be murdered on the chess board, by The Dark Knight from Incredible Games. It's a completely over-the-top presentation, and was certain to be left over a long period whether shown two or three times a week, this was always going to be a big cliffhanger.

At this point in the series, we were still waiting for it to catch fire. The Traitors had been worth watching, decent viewing, but hadn't really captured our whole-hearted interest. And this series would never grab us by the lapels like Genius Game did; but The Traitors would become more compelling in its final third.

Lucy's not coming back. Jonathan is, and is able to evade a question from Nick about what happened last evening.

"Why does nobody trust me?" asks Kate Garraway. Kate, do you remember The National Lottery The People's Quiz, where you somehow acquired the cognomen of "Quiz Deity" alongside such luminaries as William G Stewart, Mark Labbett, Olav Bjortomt, and Stephanie Bruce. It's like Linda from the civilian series asking why she's a less familiar singer than The Great Pavarotti.

Today's mission - well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it; same bridge we saw in the first series. Though it's rickety and wobbles, everyone collects the complete money, so the full £10,000 is earned. The last guide on the bridge chooses who gets the shield, and chooses in public - that's Joe Marler.

"Is it time for the other traitors to dob in a traitor?" wonders Celia quite early. The big dog theory still holds, and Jonathan is removed. Turn out the gaslights, they finally got a traitor!

Was this slow play a deliberate ploy from the faithful, who knew all the traitors from early on, and removed people who would be useful recruits in the middle game? We doubt it; that sort of galaxy-brain play might work in Blood on the Clocktower, but doesn't pass muster here.

There will be no opportunity to recruit, because there's to be a murder in plain sight at the dinner party. Every series, there's a dinner party. "Parting is such sweet sorrow" are the words to cross Alan's lips as he proposes a toast - but to whom?

Celia Imrie. She was never going to be voted out, and she was being a bit too useful to the faithful, so Celia had to go. During the civilian show, the dinner party was an excuse for the last players to reveal something about themselves, and how they proposed to use the money. The celebrities were all playing for charity; BBC rules prevent them from talking too much about their charities, something to do with "undue prominence", so only the winner(s) would disclose who they're playing for. Everyone else's charities got named on the website after the show.

Everyone goes through the actions of the previous night. Kate's dedication to journalism is such that she investigates every possibility: was it the cheese, the soup, the sun-dried tomatoes? Did Celia drink out of the wrong goblet; was it her love of fizzy ros ? David and Nick think that Joe Marler might have over-played his hand: when he said "if it's not Jonathan, vote me out tomorrow", did he know that Jonathan was a traitor?

The mission brought us back to the laser display unit, last seen towards the end of series 1. This time, the players were to carry heads from one side to the other, and by completing the mission in full, they earned £14,000. No shield, jut ducking and diving, moving and trying not to break the beams.

By now, we reckoned the celebrities had been very open in their pieces to camera, showing much more of their thinking than in the civilian version. Perhaps they've read the memo: the bulk of the game is about surviving and not revealing too many genuine suspicions to the other players. Nick says he trusts Joe, but does he really?

And we know that The Traitors is genuinely unscripted. If it were scripted, all of the conversations would be in rooms and cars. There would be no corridor talk while other people are chatting - that is exceptionally difficult to film and a nightmare to edit, they've got to get the correct angles and isolate the right microphones, Not something producers would do if they had any choice in the matter.

The round table ends up with everyone under suspicion, and Kate ends up being voted out. Once more, a faithful. And that probably seals Cat's fate: would the producers really select three blokes (including Jonathan) for a mixed group?

Everyone is taken to the fire pit, and asked to assure everyone that they're faithful. Alan cannot do it without cracking up.

So, what do the traitors have to do to win? Consensus amongst the analysts was that Joe and Nick appear to be an unshakeable bond of trust. Alan and Cat won't vote against each other if they can avoid it. David is the floating vote; if he can be persuaded to go with Alan and Cat, the traitors can win.

Remember how the series did not begin with the players arriving on the steam train? That's because they're going to use it in the final mission, a series of locked-door rooms, with £20,000 to be won if they complete all the tasks before things go kaboom. There are paintings to rip, slates to count, a chain to remove, coal to scuttle, and a wooden plank to clonk Joe Marler over the head with. The money's won, and the total is £87,500.

At the round table, Cat and David are in the firing line; Joe had previously suggested that he would work with Alan and Cat, but suddenly changed his mind, after being convinced by David. Alan is left floundering on his own, and with Joe absolutely sure that Alan is a traitor. But did Nick convince David of this?

The four-dimensional chess comes to an end: everyone chooses to banish again. David suggests that Joe is a traitor, having almost been banished the last time he suggested it. Nick also votes for Joe, because he suddenly voted for Cat.

And now we are three: all decide to end the game. And the revelation. David's faithful. Nick's faithful. Alan's a traitor. And bursts into tears, and gets hugs from his fellow finalists. It's only a game, and Alan Carr has won it.

Was he the best traitor ever, as some have suggested? We're going to argue in favour of Harry from the 2024 civilian series, because he was seriously suspected, and had to manage the dilemma of recruitment. In Alan's column, the two murders in plain sight, including a friend he brought into the castle; and the way he had so little ability to lie.

So, who would we name for the second series they've already commissioned? Bearing in mind that this is 90% an excuse to provide spoiler space for the website, and 10% serious suggestion:

• Mel Giedroyc [comedian]
• Rob Brydon [comic actor]
• Hannah Waddingham [acts]
• [one more drama actor; four seems to be about the right number, and this selection feels a bit star-heavy already]
• Dion Dublin [footballer and home renovator]
• Nat Sciver-Brunt [cricketer]
• Robin Stevens [Murder Most Unladylike author]
• David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas author)
• Neil Tennant [Pet Shop Boy]
• Craig David [singer]
• Ellie Jackson [La Roux singer]
• Georgia Marie [murder mystery vlogger]
• Megan McCubbin [naturalist, and impressively average on House of Games lately]
• Lindsey Russell [alleskunner]
• Victoria Coren-Mitchell [smartiepants]
• Tom Scott [smartiepants]
• Pat Sharp [familiar face with unexpected depth... we hope!]
• [two more wildcards, mostly blokes]

Think there's something for all the ages and demographics there; a good mixture of well-known and unfamiliar faces, people who you'd think would be good at this sort of thing, people who can impress us by being better than they look, and people who can lead a discussion. Not sure we've got the "would fart in a cabin" base covered, sorry.

The Celebrity Traitors demonstrated that people will still watch dramatic television as it goes out, and that you don't have to release a whole series at once. Over 11 million people saw the final on the night, and that's risen to at least 15 million people a month later.

The civilian Traitors follows early in the new year.

Andrew Wood, the co-creator of Bullseye, died last weekend, aged 91. His greatest creation was devised to tick all the boxes of a mass-appeal game show. He set out to create a game anyone could play - the team combined the active thrower with the passive knower, each with their own role like in the best Jacques Antoine formats. Gently revised from time to time - they don't have "The Bible" on the category board, or offer 101 on the pounds-for-points round - Wood remained in control of the Bullseye trademark after co-creator Norman Vaughan's death. He and his daughter Laura licensed it back to ITV for the current series, and trademarked a series of unlikely products such as Bullseye aftershave, clothing, and sandwich makers.

Cricketer Monty Panesar has been in the news this week. Someone had dug up his poor performance on Celebrity Mastermind back in 2019, when he scored the grand total of 1 (one) in the general knowledge round. Steve Smith, the sandpaper-loving Australian, sneered at Panesar for his many errors. Panesar clapped back, "Yeah, I made mistakes on a quiz show; Smith made his on a cricket field". Smith allowed one of his players to cheat by rubbing the ball with some sandpaper, and lied about it afterwards. For his crimes against cricket, Smith was removed from the captaincy and banned for a year. Panesar's errors were forgotten by the next morning, and only dug up by people desperate for any sort of leverage against him and his colleagues with the MCC touring team. How's the match going, again?

Monday: Andrew Cotter wins House of Games by a country mile. Tuesday, after everyone else helps out in Correction Centre, Andrew has to ask, "how come nobody's helping me?" Anna Haugh was the chef, Stevie Martin the stand-up comedian. Mark Ramprakash reminded us that there's cricket on the radio this week, and that is where his talents lie.

A perfect round on Mastermind for Carolyn Rowe, taking the drama Upstairs, Downstairs, and backed up with a strong general knowledge round. Carolyn doesn't answer quickly, she takes her time, and then answers correctly. Even when going wrong, we can see that it's a plausible and almost-correct answer. Stuart Beard topped twenty across his rounds. Finn Maxwell and Bella Burgess found the questions less to their taste tonight; both are young and will surely improve with experience.

Very sneaky picture questions on Only Connect, showing people with names that sound like two letters, in front of pictures showing those two letters. Exceptional research! Actors and the answers they gave while cheating on fictional quiz shows is this year's throwback to Scumbag College, and we never expected Richard Skinner would provide the source for a full connection.

During the show, we also learned that Victoria did not know about "Year 3000", but that she does rate Richard Osman's ability as an author. Well done if you got that on your bingo card. 6-3 to the Pear Trees after the sequences, 16-13 deficit for Whitley Baes after both were perfect on the walls, and 20-20 vision after missing vowels. Only Connect doesn't honour draws, and the Baes progressed as the second qualifiers from the top quarter of the draw.

This week's episode is a perfect example of why University Challenge gets unfortunate results. Imperial beat Southampton by 190-180, and Southampton are eliminated. The unfortunate bit is not the raw result the better side won but that Southampton put in a better performance this week than the winning Darwin Cambridge put in a fortnight ago. Some very quick buzzes from Imperial, and they were hot on the bonuses in the early part of the game, only to run into sludge in the second half of the show. Southampton trailed by 50 going into the music, but had the lead just after the second visual round, and it was more luck than judgement after that.

Imperial were 54% overall tonight (after 47% in their heat, 60% in their rep chage), bonus rate of 60% (after 50% and 64%). No penalties for Imperial (3 and 1 in their earlier games). Imperial remain perfect on Entertainment and Leisure questions, and are very strong on all aspects of science. Literature is good, History about average.

With the big shows continuing, we have a handful of new programmes. The Great B&B Challenge arrives (C4, weekdays), and S4C rolls Y Deis (Wed). QI XL resumes after its sport-induced break (BBC2, Tue). ITV offers The Great Escapers, celebs go abroad and entertain each other (Sun).

Repeats this week include Brainbox Challenge (BBC2, from Tue), and Christmas University Challenge (BBC4, Tue, Wed). BBC3 picks up Survivor Down Under (Thu).

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