Now that I have completed my watch of the seven English language seasons of The Traitors currently available to us in the US (all seasons discussed below are streaming on Peacock – well worth the money to snag the streaming service, for reasons I’ve outlined in previous reviews), I come to you with a definitive ranking of the seven games. Don’t worry! I won’t spoil the ending of any of them in case you haven’t managed to find the 65-odd hours necessary to complete the seven season watch yourself. But, if you’re in the market for a new season of Traitors to check out, this list will help to let you know just which ones are must watch, and which season is an utter mess from start to . . . well, not quite the finish.
7. Australia, Season Two
I had heard some bad things about the season before diving in and boy, were they right. If you’ve ever wondered just how unbelievably gullible human beings can be, this season is a prime example. For reasons known only to them, the Faithful of this season are so utterly awful at playing the game that I honestly started fast forwarding through the latter episodes to get to the Banishments just to see how wrong they would get it this time around. And it turns out that when the Faithful cannot get their act together at all, the game loses a ton of its momentum – and its fun. Sure, host Roger Corser is still a delight (he’s a bit looser this time around, which helps a lot when things are laughably bad for the Faithful), and the finale is absolutely worth a look for reasons I won’t reveal, but this is far and away the worst season of The Traitors. And, as the Australia version of the series was cancelled, it’s such a bummer to end this version of the series on such a down note.
6. New Zealand, Season One
Compared to Australia Season Two, New Zealand’s sole season (thus far – Season Two will come out later this year) is excellent. However, when compared to the other five entries on our list, it just doesn’t quite make the grade. Perhaps it’s because New Zealand is a much smaller country than the other three on the list, but the casting for the season was strange. Several of the contestants knew each other from outside of the game (some for decades), and those established relationships (and the entertainment-based careers those players had) made it so that those who weren’t friends with those players had targets on their back from day one. Knowing your competition can be an advantage – when a player pointed out that they’ve known one of the Traitors for years and that he had started acting strangely immediately following Traitor selection, that’s a huge plus . . . if you can get his other friends to agree to vote him out – but being one of the few people who doesn’t have a built in ally can also put you in a precarious position from the word go. Add in a host in Paul Henry who lacks the chops of Corser, Alan Cumming, or Claudia Winkleman, and you have a series that doesn’t live up to the heights of its brethren.
5. UK, Season One
Now, the UK version of the series has the best host of the lot in Claudia Winkleman (fight me, Alan Cumming stans), but season one was just a hair less successful than it’s US counterpart (more on that one in a second). There were several memorable personalities – and some I think we’d all rather forget – but when it comes down to it, the season as a whole wasn’t all that memorable. Especially when compared with Season Two of the series which was pretty darn exceptional. But it was a good start – teaching future contestants how to play the game, both Traitor and Faithful. And that definitely counts for something.
4. US, Season One
The first version of the series most of us here in America got to see introduced the country to not only the game, but also to Alan Cumming’s delightful, over-the-top host persona. Eating the scenery, Cumming became the real star of this installment – something that only became more apparent in season two, which saw him leaning even further into the character he concocted (the players are living in his Scottish manor house and he’s simply there to watch them bicker and kill each other off for the fun of it – none of which, naturally, is at all true). The decision to have normal folk play the game alongside Reality TV veterans was the major twist of this season – and while it worked in some cases, much like the situation in New Zealand, it put those without a television past at a decided disadvantage. While there weren’t clear alliances between the TV folks (which was a plus), it did mean that those with a competition reality background were able to navigate the twists and turns of the game with ease whilst some of those without that training were lost. And it was clear that for those who understand the gamer mentality, the idea that this is all just a game was easier to keep in mind than it was for those without that background.
All-in-all, this is a very satisfying season of The Traitors, and absolutely worth a watch (I would even suggest watching it prior to US Season Two, if only to see how this version of the game have evolved in just a single year). But the imbalance in playing abilities knocks this one down the list a bit.
3. US, Season Two
As mentioned above, season two of the US edition of the series dispensed with the normal folk and instead pulled all its contestants from the world of Reality TV. This meant that Real Housewives mixed with Survivor alums and MTV’s The Challenge champions. How would the non-gamers fare against those who have made their reputation outsmarting, outwitting, and outrunning their competition? Shockingly well, to be frank. And for someone like me, who has an extremely limited knowledge of either world of Reality TV, this season was also shockingly engaging. I may not have known many of the contestants when it began, but boy did I know who they were by the end – and I was fully entertained along the way.
From introducing Phaedra Parks (a former cast member of The Real Housewives of Atlanta who broke the internet with her various outbursts in the game, not least of which was the excellent “Lord, not Ekin-Su!”) to the masses, to showing us that folks like CT from The Challenge still had gas in the tank after years of grueling work on TV, this season was utterly compelling from start to finish. Add in Alan Cumming appearing to be more at ease with a cast of TV veterans than he was with the combined crew back in season one, and this is now the gold standard for the series in America.
2. UK, Season Two
If there’s one thing that is learned after watching all seven seasons of The Traitors currently out there, it’s that a truly exceptional Traitor can only take the series so far. Sure, it’s fun to watch a Traitor – or Traitors – run circles around the Faithful, but as was learned from Season Two of Australia, that gets old very fast. You need strong Traitors and a couple strong Faithful players in order to truly make a game of it. Who ends up winning out, well, that’s less important in the end, so long as the winner(s) got there through strong gameplay.
But UK Season Two offers the best of both worlds. We get one of the best Traitors to play the game in Harry, an Army officer with the ability to manipulate those around him with his cheery personality and team-forward demeanor, and we get several exceptional Faithful, including Jaz, a smart guy who manages to keep his head above water while deducing just who might be a Traitor, and Mollie, a truly kind young woman who may, sadly, have poor taste in friends. It’s a wonderful game to watch and despite the thrust of the competition, it rarely devolves into anger or a sense of entitlement (unlike some versions of the series). And watching Harry try to go the distance? That’s worth the price of admission alone.
1. Australia, Season One
Where Season Two of Australia was an utter disaster, Season One is the absolute best that The Traitors has to offer as a series. A string of strong, competent, and compelling Traitors (including arguably the absolute best to play the game thus far, and that’s saying something) mesh with a group of interesting Faithful. Sure, there are a few contestants who get shockingly little screen time and then become important in the game’s final moves (which confounded many a fan while watching), and the first handful of episodes feel long and tedious. But those final six or so episodes? Just sensational, edge-of-your-seat intense. The series also does a good job of letting us know more about our key players – Faithful and Traitor – as the final episodes roll out. Knowing what they would spend the winnings on, who they are when they aren’t playing the game, and just what their gameplay includes helps to create characters we can root for (or against). I couldn’t turn it off, desperate to see just who would win and if one of the most interesting Traitor runs would result in victory. If you’re looking for an entry point into the series, this is it.
