David Farnor | On 30, Nov 2024

Cloaks at the ready! The Traitors Season 3 will officially begin on New Year’s Day, BBC One has confirmed.

Hosted by Claudia Winkleman, the psychological reality competition sees 22 strangers play the ultimate game of detection, backstabbing and trust, in the hope of winning up to £120,000.

Rapidly renewed for a second and then a third chapter, the series will once again see a new group of strangers head to an ancient castle in Scotland, where they work together to complete challenges and build up a prize fund – but hidden among the Faithful contestants are the Traitors, whose goal is to eliminate the Faithful and claim the prize for themselves, all the while remaining undetected. Under the cover of darkness, the Traitors murder the Faithful one by one, while the players must try to uncover the Traitors and banish them from the game. If the Faithful contestants banish all the Traitors, they share the prize fund but if a Traitor makes it to the end, they steal all the money.

“The Mole meets Wink Murder in this compulsively entertaining reality TV contest,” we wrote in our review.

Season 3 will premiere at 8pm on BBC One on Wednesday 1st January 2025. Episode 2 will air at 8pm on Thursday 2nd January, followed by Episode 3 at 9pm on Friday 3rd January. Episodes will then air at 9pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights.

The Official visualised podcast The Traitors: Uncloaked, hosted by Ed Gamble, will also be available directly after every episode of the main show on BBC Two and iPlayer – plus an extended version with additional guests and further theories will be available on BBC Sounds.

We’re 100% excited.

 

BBC renews the Traitors for Season 3

4th November 2023

BBC One has already renewed The Traitors for a third season, before Season 2 has even started to air.

Hosted by Claudia Winkleman, the psychological reality competition sees 22 strangers play the ultimate game of detection, backstabbing and trust, in the hope of winning up to £120,000. The Traitors reached 21 million audiences in its first season, and was the biggest brand new entertainment launch for the BBC since 2021. It was also the biggest new series for young audiences across all BBC titles in 2022, and the highest rating new entertainment series on the BBC since at least 2017 for young audiences.

This year The Traitors scooped a host of awards including the BAFTA TV Award for Best Reality & Constructed Factual, the NTA for Reality Competition, the RTS award for Entertainment and the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Entertainment Programme, while Claudia Winkleman bagged the BAFTA TV Award for Best Entertainment Performance, the RTS award for Entertainment Performance and the Edinburgh TV Festival Variety Outstanding Achievement Award.

Stephen Lambert, CEO of Studio Lambert, says: “We’re delighted a third series of The Traitors has been confirmed today ahead of the second series’ arrival on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. The Traitors has been so warmly received by viewers, critics and award juries alike. Claudia and the team look forward to keeping audiences on the edge of their seats again with ever more thrilling missions and exceptional players competing in this gripping game of bluff and skill.”

Applications are now open for those who wish to play the game. Meanwhile, with Season 2 expected to air this autumn, on a date yet to be confirmed, The Traitors US and The Traitors Australia are both available on BBC iPlayer.

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