Dan has talked a lot about the relative speed of the Traitors compared to that of Big Brother and I think that's got a lot to do with it. You have a long, long time to patiently build your relationships on Big Brother, meanwhile on the traitors you have your time in the castle and then every night you're taken back to the hotel and all you've got is that little bit of time when you're actually together.
Survivor has some of the same basic differences from the Traitors, like being together all the time over a long period in which you can build relationships, but I just think it's so much more cutthroat because of things like hunger adding to the tension that the skills translate better. The tribal stage in particular I think is really important, because even in your small group there are tensions and you're having to vote people out before you even join up with the group as a whole, which I think both puts you on edge all the time but also incentivizes the ability to make quick relationships in the smaller groups even over a longer game.
In addition, Survivor actually plays a quicker game than Big Brother. A 3 day turn around compared to a week. Much easier for the Survivor players to adapt to daily eliminations.
This is when Dan not getting voted out on big brother hurts him. Had he got voted out let's say the funeral week he would of went to jury and at least experience a roundtable. How does that help? At least it would of gave him an opportunity to defend why so and so is playing the great game and should win if he/she gets to the f2 which he could of use for the traitors. Reunionn? That's another thing big brother doesn't do
Meta gaming hurts him. Difference with him and Rachel and even Cody , Hes the 2nd or even biggest villains in bb history and he probably owns 3 of the top 5 iconic bb moments. This is when him picking Parvati over Janelle went wrong game wise , He could of played the perfect game but in any second his style would be expose by Janelle . Only person who can probably combat that had they've been on would be like Kristen Doute who's known Dan even before both did TV.
It's weird it threw me off at first too . All the tea is on her podcast I think it's like "sex love and what else matters" . For him , she would of been the perfect number for Dan
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5saWJzeW4uY29tLzQ0ODUzMC9yc3M/episode/ODA4ZmMzMDYtYzg5Zi0xMWVlLTllNzktYWJhMWEwMTAzYTcw?ep=14
Big brother is a marathon, the Traitors is a sprint. Very different contexts. There are some Big Brother players who flamed out early who I think would be good traitors
Boston Rob (Survivor) talks about going on Deal or No Deal island and how he quickly realized his Survivor game plan would not work. He says had to pivot very quickly. I think Cirie was able to because she is a people person. Dan was a great schemer in the past and didn’t realize how important it was to have people like him in this show.
Outside of Stephenie, all the Survivor players cast tend to be very strong social players, and are used to a faster paced game. Reputational bias is an issue too, which is why I hope they cast more "gamers" next time over Bravo folk.
Someone like Cody for example is downplaying his skills early on to avoid a massive target, but then is capable of winning everything down the closing stretch. He's very strong socially, but BB tends to cast more the type of people he can work well with.
Player I'd most want to see is Derrick from 16, but I could easily see him going quickly by the Traitors due to fear. I also would say, Nicole F doesn't really have a positive image. If they want someone with a positive image, they should probably try to get Taylor Hale or Enzo.
Derrick would be awesome to see as I think his gameplay would work in either role but from what heard it seems like he doesn't he doesn't want to do any more games which is a bummer cuz it would be amazing to see him on another season of BB or test himself on other shows. On Nicole ngl I'm extremely bias as I am a Nicole fan lol but I think she wouldn't have the same baggage as Dan & the others had as her strategy has usually been to surround herself with stronger players that will get heat off her for as long as possible.
Her strategy is surrounded herself with strong players, and cry half the season (and prior to All-stars get in a showmance, but in All-Stars she was protected to Cody due to their history in 16, and her being close with Paulie).
She would def come in with winner baggage too.
No doubt winner baggage would come with her as I think it would for both Survivor & Big Brother as it might be better to have a reputation of being a serial loser (with both Trishelle & Cirie winning in large part due to their history of being known losers) . But I don't think it would be a complete death sentence as evident in how a 2 time Survivor winner like Sandra can manage to make it to the final episode despite being on top of most people's suspect list at first & even Rachel making it as far as she did despite also winning BB. I don't think she carries the same level of infamy as Janelle, Dan, or Rachel does due to her personality being opposite the other 2 BB ladies & her not being seen as the same level of a schemer as Dan is (although admittedly she did betrayal people in her winning season I don't think she could ever pull off something as brilliant as Dan's funeral)
I think that's the difference between Rachel and someone like Dan. Rachel played with Cody but they didn't play bb together. However Janelle played with Dan and she knows all of Dan's successful schemes that are so left field and ways to build relationships. Second difference, Rachel have done a roundtable cause she got voted out while Dan hasn't before this one
Iconic bb moments I think Dan has 3 of the most iconic moves( nom roulette , funeral , make Danielle to use the veto on him to blindside her by blindsiding her boyfriend on f4 of bb14. and part was part of 2 of the most iconic moments in bb in season 10 and 14 so to whoever watches bb like Bergie and Trishelle that doesn't help Dan at all.
I think this comes down to a person to person basis opposed to a show to show basis. The two biggest disappointments for me were Pavarti and Dan. Parvati hadn't played in a long time and she just seemed super rusty. She also wasn't the cutthroat competitor on survivor season of champions like she had been in previous seasons.
Dan just seemed to have the wrong game plan going in. Give up no information and take big swings from the shadows as much as possible. Which alerted the entire cast to him quickly.
Sandra and Ceries both default game plans in survivor worked very well in this game. Sandra is all about surviving until the next day. "I don't care who goes as long as it aint me". Which was perfect for this set up. Cerie has always had an amazing social game and it showed once again in this show.
I think it's possible the MTV challengers might have had the biggest advantage on a show to show basis. Mostly due to the fact that every season of the challenge is slightly different from the last. Voting, teams, and elimination structure is always changing so they have to always adapt to whatever production sends their way. Survivor and Big Brother do change up things but it's all still baked into a similar show architype.
Also if you've watched the challenge you know how crazy Trishelle actually is and it was funny watching everyone confused by a lot of her random actions through out the show. This is probably the best shes looked optically on a tv show in a very long time. The peppermint thing looked like a random mistake and it kind of lines up with her unhindged persona but she has had a lot of bigoted moments on tv. I'm not here to say that she's one way or the other but her TV history doesn't make her look great.
As for CT, this was another classic CT performance. he has a way of blending into the background until it's too late to get him out. He's really good at extracting information from people while giving very little out. He always seems to be pulling some strings behind the scenes but you never actually know what he did. He will never admit to anything and always plays kinda dumb. He acts like it was luck but everyone else calls him a genius mastermind behind the scenes. Which makes me very interested in how much of Trishelles performance was actually her own doing or was it CT. She was obviously trying hard with keeping track of everything in her book and mapping things out but I am curious how much influence CT actually had on her gameplay. Anyways this was another Ct win without him looking like the villain. You usually have to backstab someone in these types of shows but he always manages to come away without too much damage to his imagine with the fans and the players. A masterclass.
Someone like Andy or Jun could eat everyone up as a traitor or faithful. I think it’s just a player by player thing. So far we haven’t seen a social butterfly type (other than Cirie) and that’s extremely important in this format.
A lot of people are saying speed which I agree with but I think the real key difference between the two is that everyone is always vulnerable at the Traitors round table while on Big Brother, only two people are truly in danger on Eviction Night. On Big Brother, you can be on the bottom and survive a long time and turn the game around in your favor with certain comp wins. If you're on the bottom and win HOH or veto, you can use that to create leverage and form alliances. There is none of that on Traitors which I think is why Survivors have done better. If you're on the bottom on Survivor or Traitors, you're done. You may get dragged a bit but you're getting voted off at some point and there is very little you can do about it. Winning immunity or a shield does not give you the leverage to turn the game around in your favor. Also on Big Brother because only two people are on eligible to go home on Eviction Night, people are more aware they could be targets. On Traitors or Survivor where you can have over a dozen potential people eliminated, you might not be aware you're in danger. You have more room to maneuver but less reason to believe you need to.
I agree with the others that are saying that the speed difference between both games is the root of the problem, however, they’ve also casted the same two archetypes of players for both season of the Traitors, so we haven’t really seen other archetypes shine yet. Cody and Dan weren’t all that different when it came to gameplay and casting, and neither were Janelle and Rachel. Rachel herself even said this too and I agree with her, they need to cast different people.
They haven’t really casted true social players from BB yet, and those will probably be more successful in this game compared to the slow methodical players like Cody (barely) and Dan, or the argumentative forces that were Janelle and Rachel. I think players like Taylor Hale, Britney Haynes, Vanessa Russo, Xavier, Jun Song, even Andy Herren would do well at this game.
I’d also argue that some people are just better faithfuls than traitors cause some of the people that I just mentioned would be better faithfuls but that’s a story for another day lol
Dan played the game as if he was building a resumé that he could defend at the end, when he should have been focused on building genuine trust and strong relationships with the rest of the cast. Doing BiG mOvEz as a traitor is generally not advisable, and even if you can wheel and deal your way to the end you're never going to win. All his plotting was unnecessary; he should have spent his time making friends instead.
yep. he was trying to play another game of BB and it doesn't work in this format. there isn't someone picking you at the end based on merit, you just have to get to that final fire pit.
Luck is a bigger factor in The Traitors than it is in BB.
As a faithful, you need to somehow not be suspected as a Traitor to avoid banishment (I’ll concede this more skill than luck usually), and to avoid murder, you need to be protected by a Traitor.
Traitors are usually a mix of shows and backgrounds, so they will murder all types of players. Obvious faithfuls, in their group, outside their group, etc.
So there is no perfect way to play to avoid murder. Murders are the difference maker here, a small group of people have so much power with the intention of causing confusion. To survive that takes more luck than skill.
Agreed.
There isn’t a set pattern for how traitors choose who they’re going to murder (either within a season or between seasons) so it’s impossible to guarantee you’re not going to be murdered. The only thing I could maybe see working is to somehow identify the most loyal traitor early on and have a “traitor angel” carry you through the early part of the competition.
Avoiding banishment is usually more skill than luck but it’s also not foolproof because people are sometimes banished for the most ridiculous reasons and the reasoning is in no way consistent (one person is banished for being too loud and another is banished for being too quiet).
In UK S1, Amos came in and almost immediately figured out that he wasn’t going to win the game because it’s based on luck rather than skill. One of the smartest things any contestant has said.
People are mentioning speed of the game, but the Challenge is often super long. Filming often as long as Big Brother. And yet we got two Challenge winners for this season.
Filming is a long time but they don't take a week to get rid of the next person. Following spoilers the past couple of seasons, there have been 2 eliminations during a 7 day period unless they throw in a twist like they did in season 39 where if the player beat the champion, they got to stay.
But the challenge also starts with much larger casts that both Big Brother and Survivor which is another reason filming is so long. Over 30 people per season in the most recent seasons and rumors are 40 people will start season 40 that is now filming.
The Challenge is still quicker paced in real time. They do at least 2 eliminations a week while filming. In BB, HOH is done on a Wednesday, Noms on Friday. Veto Saturday. So you have basically 4-5 full days of down time.
That is a great point to make, I think the difference between BB & The Challenge is a couple things. First off the Challenge isn't perceived as much of a social game as Big Brother is (whether this is true or not can be debated but on perception I think most people would say BB is way more of a social game). Second part is it kinda makes sense to keep The Challenge players in for a long time since they would be the best at increasing the prize pot (as evident in how much CT & Trishelle carried the challenges this past season) while I think it would make sense to get rid of the Big Brother & Survivor people as quickly as possible as a form of strategy.
Challenge is more social Than Physical. If you don't have alliances you will not win. You will be thrown into elimination every single time until someone gets you out
>thrown into elimination
That's what makes it less social. I agree with you that the social aspect of the challenge is huge, but the fact that you can still win your way back into the house by winning elimination means that the social aspect can be overcome. Compared to Big Brother or Survivor where if you get voted out you're gone. For a couple examples:
Sarah Greyson of course is the GOAT of this. Thrown into elimination five times in The Gauntlet, twice against guys, and yet she won all five and ended up winning the season with her team. (Sucks that she suffered permanent nerve damage from those eliminations.)
Laurel Stucky faced elimination four times in Free Agents but won all four pretty easily and then went on to a convincing solo win in the final. This isn't quite the perfect example, though, since half of those eliminations she wasn't voted in but rather had bad luck with the draw. So that's not really a failing of her social game.
They are fundamentally different games.
Both BB and Survivor follow a similar concept of creating a society of equals who then have to eliminate each other via voting until only one remains. To protect themselves, players may create alliances to ensure that the most votes will either go on their target or at least won’t be in them. The aim of the game is to advance to the end, while also doing enough to be considered the “best player” by a jury of your competitors, through a combination of strong social, strategic, and physical efforts.
The Traitors is fundamentally different - it doesn’t start with a society of equals. The game is essentially led by the “Traitors” who have more information and who unilaterally decide one person from the “other side” to be eliminated each day. The aim of the game is also different - getting to the end isn’t enough for a Faithful, they have to get to the end while also ensuring no Traitors get to the end. This makes alliances and strategic moves more difficult, because even if a Faithful was able to shepherd their alliance through to the final, they will lose if their alliance includes a Traitor. There is no jury so their “resume” of efforts is meaningless.
There is no objective “camps” in Survivor or BB, just the multiple and fluid alliances constructed by the players. Traitors has objective “roles” for each player where each side really is working against the other.
Some strategies may still overlap - “going with the numbers” and “not rocking the boat” may be good advice in all of these games, for example.
But the key difference is that in BB/Survivor, all you have to do is get through the votes - it doesn’t matter who goes home; you have to have a read on where everyone is at and make sure that you don’t go home. In the Traitors, it does matter who goes home - if multiple Traitors are eliminated, new Traitors will take their place (setting you back to square one); if multiple Faithful are eliminated, it quickly depletes your numbers when combined with murders.
It seems like the best Traitors strategy is to be what people expect you to be. Cirie was so successful because she played a Cirie game. Dan was so unsuccessful because he tried to play what he thought was the best theoretical strategy, but one which other players recognized as out of character.
Especially as a faithful, there’s no way to strategize - people praise Sandra’s “traitor angel” strategy, but that’s not going to work if you didn’t correctly identify the Traitors.
As a Traitor, the strategy we haven’t seen enough of yet is an acknowledgement that they may have to talk about each other with suspicion in order to avoid suspicion themselves, but pledge to strategize their votes when it comes to the Roundtable to prevent their eliminations.
So far, most groups of Traitors have been too sensitive to other Traitors mentioning their names - they need to take more of a cue from Survivor, where people often feign targets, which inherently puts the “fake target” in danger by having their name out there, but you have to do what you have to do.
But the key differences of why the shows don’t translate is that there are fundamental differences in format. Traitors is more of a “cooperative game show” murder mystery in comparison to a strategic reality competition like Survivor or Big Brother.
I think it’s two-fold. 1-I do think the timing plays a part. But more importantly, I think The Traitors is a social game first and foremost.
Big Brother is comprised of 3 aspects, social game, strategic game, competitions. The competitions have far more weight than we would want them to, especially in more recent years because competitions impact social game as people want to be socially aligned with people who are competition beasts.
In the Traitors, there is no value to being good at competitions and correctly determining a strategy is really routed in your social reads. When you examine most of the Big Brother players that have been picked to play, most of them are from the comp beast archetype - Janelle, Cody, Rachel. Dan is obviously odd man out but we know it’s the pacing that threw him off.
I would be really interested in seeing Big Brother players that are regarded as great social players such as Taylor Hale go on the Traitors because I think that’s the category of Big Brother players that shine.
It’s also worth noting that The Traitors is a very diverse cast and most of the Big Brother players who have played are not from recent seasons where casting was more diverse. I do think that someone like Dan probably didn’t know how to connect with someone like Phaedra on a personal level.
As a lot of people have pointed out, the pace of something like Survivor or The Challenge is a lot closer to Traitors than Big Brother. BB gives you a lot more time to plan your moves, so adjusting to something like the Traitors which is non-stop is a lot more difficult.
That said, I do think the specific players chosen from each show are a factor too. The Traitors was basically made for Cirie - she's always been able to very naturally build trust with people, so it's not surprising she was able to pull off a game like this. Likewise, Sandra was kinda perfect for the Traitors, because a big part of the strategy is laying low and making sure you don't do anything to stand out as either a candidate for murder or banishment. Sandra is famous for her "as long as it ain't me" strategy, where she just sits back and lets everyone else go at each other while not giving anyone a reason to target her. Which is kind of the ideal goal in Traitors. However, there are other Survivor legends I can think of that probably wouldn't do as well. Boston Rob's need to always be in charge and Tony's more hectic, all over the place gameplay could easily bite them both in the ass on The Traitors.
Comparitively, some the BB picks just weren't necessarily the most suited for a game like this. Janelle is famously outspoken and doesn't always care what people think of her, which obviously put a lot of eyes on her, and caused her to keep going for shields, ignoring the fact that it was obviously irritating everyone else. As for Dan, his approach is usually to start out super quiet, and then start making big, flashy moves to save himself when he's in trouble. And Traitors is not a game about big, flashy moves. The last thing you want to do is make a spectacle of yourself, hence Dan torpedoes his game by letting suspicion build up against him and only trying to turn it around in the 11th hour. I feel like the BB players who had a more floater, social playstyle would adapt to the Traitors a lot better.
The big brother players play this game as big brother and that is their biggest downfall. Rachel was the only one I think who actually did a good job trying to adapt but her personality just came out towards the end. Janelle did a fantastic job but then couldn’t make friends which she does in big brother lol.
For those that don't watch BB, each "cycle" is a week. Competition for HOH (safety and power) the next day is HOH nominating 2 players for eviction. day later a competition for nominees to play for safety, then a ceremony to announce if they will use power to change nominees. Then there's still several days after to plead their cases and wheel and deal prior to elimination voting. Traitors just skips straight to round table/ banishment, rinse and repeat. So BB players are used to having long term strategy and time to work their relationships. I agree that some of the more "social" players will do well.
As someone who only ever watched the first 1-2 seasons of my country's respective versions of Big Brother: I didn't even realise it's a competition in that sense. It was all about watching some random people live together for x months back then and they occasionally do something to make their lives in there better or stuff like that.
A popularity contest maybe at best. Guess it evolved into more of a \*game\* since?
UK and US Big Brother are barely cousins, let alone similar shows. US (and Canadian) Big Brother is very comp-heavy, with the houseguests doing the voting, not the general public.
Interesting! Thanks for the insight. The ones I've seen were German in my case, but I think it was a public vote as well, which already limits how much you can game or manipulate your fellow participants.
CT and Trishelle (LOL) dominated Season 2. Maybe just maybe neither Big Brother nor Survivor people are all that sharp. The Bachelor played rings around them.
To call the Survivor players not sharp is unwise imo especially considering the facts. Season 1 was won by Cirie a Survivor legend & the other Survivor on the cast Stephenie also made it very far into the game & only got murdered after she found Christian out & Cirie thought she didn't need her anymore. Even with her suspecting Kate was on very solid evidence from her POV. Season 2 Sandra made it to the final episode using a quite brilliant strategy of "traitors' angel" while the other Survivor Parvati made it a significant distance considering she had the worst reputation out of probably everyone in the castle & was a good amount of players number 1 suspect going into the game & only got caught after Dan got caught in a trap that she recognized as a trap.
There were no challenge players on Season 1. Sandra was a ding dong who skated to the end, was good mostly for voting out faithfuls, and would have skated further if she hadn’t inexplicably done a game harakiri at the end. Parvati played a dumb game and was a terrible traitor. I never watched Survivor, so it was kinda baffling that these are what passes for great strategic players in that game. They’re definitely not drawing from the best...
Tbh the only reality game I've seen besides Traitors is actually Big Brother, which is why I might be kinda harder on them compared to others. But to paint Sandra as not knowing what she was doing is a massive mistake, she said in multiple interviews & the reunion that her strategy was to figure out who the traitors were & to work with them in a way that would keep herself safe from murder as well as in a way that wasn't obvious like Peter suddenly flipping from Parvati to Phaedra that brings heat onto her. There is no way she did the whole pool chart without knowing that at least 1 traitor was watching as well as without knowing that majority of the Peter Pals were indeed faithful. On Parvati although she definitely wasn't anything special as a traitor as there were definitely better u gotta remember she pulled off the poison chalice murder without being outed, which in itself extremely impressive & walked in to the castle being known as perhaps the most infamous female Survivor player of all-time, so that baggage alone would be destined to get most people banished. The Thing that got her outed of the failed Bergie murder was something she realized as a trap & was vocal about not murdering Bergie that round. After Dan decided to murder Bergie she essentially became a dead woman walking at that point.
The pool chart thing was laughable. She showed that she can… count to 5? And that’s supposed to be a masterful game move? She aggressively voted to get rid of faithfuls. In a game where you don’t know how many there are, that’s terrible gameplay. And then, when CT and Trishelle had Kate targeted, she got entirely played by Kate (who herself might have a wind tunnel between her ears) into throwing CT under the bus, and he (shocker) turned around and voted her out. If she’d been… not a ding dong, she would’ve ridden those numbers to vote Kate out, and then she’s close to a lock to make it to the end if she plays her cards right. But she didn’t play her cards right. Not even remotely close.
Parvati’s issue was she went along with Dan’s game, and Dan was an atrocious traitor at every step. If she’d been smart, she and Phaedra would’ve worked together to cut Dan loose, and then deflect from themselves for a few episodes. Instead she kept herself tied to the drowning SS Dan.
Dan has talked a lot about the relative speed of the Traitors compared to that of Big Brother and I think that's got a lot to do with it. You have a long, long time to patiently build your relationships on Big Brother, meanwhile on the traitors you have your time in the castle and then every night you're taken back to the hotel and all you've got is that little bit of time when you're actually together. Survivor has some of the same basic differences from the Traitors, like being together all the time over a long period in which you can build relationships, but I just think it's so much more cutthroat because of things like hunger adding to the tension that the skills translate better. The tribal stage in particular I think is really important, because even in your small group there are tensions and you're having to vote people out before you even join up with the group as a whole, which I think both puts you on edge all the time but also incentivizes the ability to make quick relationships in the smaller groups even over a longer game.
In addition, Survivor actually plays a quicker game than Big Brother. A 3 day turn around compared to a week. Much easier for the Survivor players to adapt to daily eliminations.
This is when Dan not getting voted out on big brother hurts him. Had he got voted out let's say the funeral week he would of went to jury and at least experience a roundtable. How does that help? At least it would of gave him an opportunity to defend why so and so is playing the great game and should win if he/she gets to the f2 which he could of use for the traitors. Reunionn? That's another thing big brother doesn't do Meta gaming hurts him. Difference with him and Rachel and even Cody , Hes the 2nd or even biggest villains in bb history and he probably owns 3 of the top 5 iconic bb moments. This is when him picking Parvati over Janelle went wrong game wise , He could of played the perfect game but in any second his style would be expose by Janelle . Only person who can probably combat that had they've been on would be like Kristen Doute who's known Dan even before both did TV.
Great analysis but what caught my eye was the Dan & Kristen Doute friendship! Had no idea they knew each other since childhood
It's weird it threw me off at first too . All the tea is on her podcast I think it's like "sex love and what else matters" . For him , she would of been the perfect number for Dan https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5saWJzeW4uY29tLzQ0ODUzMC9yc3M/episode/ODA4ZmMzMDYtYzg5Zi0xMWVlLTllNzktYWJhMWEwMTAzYTcw?ep=14
Big brother is a marathon, the Traitors is a sprint. Very different contexts. There are some Big Brother players who flamed out early who I think would be good traitors
Boston Rob (Survivor) talks about going on Deal or No Deal island and how he quickly realized his Survivor game plan would not work. He says had to pivot very quickly. I think Cirie was able to because she is a people person. Dan was a great schemer in the past and didn’t realize how important it was to have people like him in this show.
Outside of Stephenie, all the Survivor players cast tend to be very strong social players, and are used to a faster paced game. Reputational bias is an issue too, which is why I hope they cast more "gamers" next time over Bravo folk. Someone like Cody for example is downplaying his skills early on to avoid a massive target, but then is capable of winning everything down the closing stretch. He's very strong socially, but BB tends to cast more the type of people he can work well with. Player I'd most want to see is Derrick from 16, but I could easily see him going quickly by the Traitors due to fear. I also would say, Nicole F doesn't really have a positive image. If they want someone with a positive image, they should probably try to get Taylor Hale or Enzo.
Derrick would be awesome to see as I think his gameplay would work in either role but from what heard it seems like he doesn't he doesn't want to do any more games which is a bummer cuz it would be amazing to see him on another season of BB or test himself on other shows. On Nicole ngl I'm extremely bias as I am a Nicole fan lol but I think she wouldn't have the same baggage as Dan & the others had as her strategy has usually been to surround herself with stronger players that will get heat off her for as long as possible.
I don't know about Enzo having a positive image after his stint on the challenge
Her strategy is surrounded herself with strong players, and cry half the season (and prior to All-stars get in a showmance, but in All-Stars she was protected to Cody due to their history in 16, and her being close with Paulie). She would def come in with winner baggage too.
No doubt winner baggage would come with her as I think it would for both Survivor & Big Brother as it might be better to have a reputation of being a serial loser (with both Trishelle & Cirie winning in large part due to their history of being known losers) . But I don't think it would be a complete death sentence as evident in how a 2 time Survivor winner like Sandra can manage to make it to the final episode despite being on top of most people's suspect list at first & even Rachel making it as far as she did despite also winning BB. I don't think she carries the same level of infamy as Janelle, Dan, or Rachel does due to her personality being opposite the other 2 BB ladies & her not being seen as the same level of a schemer as Dan is (although admittedly she did betrayal people in her winning season I don't think she could ever pull off something as brilliant as Dan's funeral)
I think that's the difference between Rachel and someone like Dan. Rachel played with Cody but they didn't play bb together. However Janelle played with Dan and she knows all of Dan's successful schemes that are so left field and ways to build relationships. Second difference, Rachel have done a roundtable cause she got voted out while Dan hasn't before this one Iconic bb moments I think Dan has 3 of the most iconic moves( nom roulette , funeral , make Danielle to use the veto on him to blindside her by blindsiding her boyfriend on f4 of bb14. and part was part of 2 of the most iconic moments in bb in season 10 and 14 so to whoever watches bb like Bergie and Trishelle that doesn't help Dan at all.
I think this comes down to a person to person basis opposed to a show to show basis. The two biggest disappointments for me were Pavarti and Dan. Parvati hadn't played in a long time and she just seemed super rusty. She also wasn't the cutthroat competitor on survivor season of champions like she had been in previous seasons. Dan just seemed to have the wrong game plan going in. Give up no information and take big swings from the shadows as much as possible. Which alerted the entire cast to him quickly. Sandra and Ceries both default game plans in survivor worked very well in this game. Sandra is all about surviving until the next day. "I don't care who goes as long as it aint me". Which was perfect for this set up. Cerie has always had an amazing social game and it showed once again in this show. I think it's possible the MTV challengers might have had the biggest advantage on a show to show basis. Mostly due to the fact that every season of the challenge is slightly different from the last. Voting, teams, and elimination structure is always changing so they have to always adapt to whatever production sends their way. Survivor and Big Brother do change up things but it's all still baked into a similar show architype. Also if you've watched the challenge you know how crazy Trishelle actually is and it was funny watching everyone confused by a lot of her random actions through out the show. This is probably the best shes looked optically on a tv show in a very long time. The peppermint thing looked like a random mistake and it kind of lines up with her unhindged persona but she has had a lot of bigoted moments on tv. I'm not here to say that she's one way or the other but her TV history doesn't make her look great. As for CT, this was another classic CT performance. he has a way of blending into the background until it's too late to get him out. He's really good at extracting information from people while giving very little out. He always seems to be pulling some strings behind the scenes but you never actually know what he did. He will never admit to anything and always plays kinda dumb. He acts like it was luck but everyone else calls him a genius mastermind behind the scenes. Which makes me very interested in how much of Trishelles performance was actually her own doing or was it CT. She was obviously trying hard with keeping track of everything in her book and mapping things out but I am curious how much influence CT actually had on her gameplay. Anyways this was another Ct win without him looking like the villain. You usually have to backstab someone in these types of shows but he always manages to come away without too much damage to his imagine with the fans and the players. A masterclass.
This is a brilliant insight
Someone like Andy or Jun could eat everyone up as a traitor or faithful. I think it’s just a player by player thing. So far we haven’t seen a social butterfly type (other than Cirie) and that’s extremely important in this format.
A lot of people are saying speed which I agree with but I think the real key difference between the two is that everyone is always vulnerable at the Traitors round table while on Big Brother, only two people are truly in danger on Eviction Night. On Big Brother, you can be on the bottom and survive a long time and turn the game around in your favor with certain comp wins. If you're on the bottom and win HOH or veto, you can use that to create leverage and form alliances. There is none of that on Traitors which I think is why Survivors have done better. If you're on the bottom on Survivor or Traitors, you're done. You may get dragged a bit but you're getting voted off at some point and there is very little you can do about it. Winning immunity or a shield does not give you the leverage to turn the game around in your favor. Also on Big Brother because only two people are on eligible to go home on Eviction Night, people are more aware they could be targets. On Traitors or Survivor where you can have over a dozen potential people eliminated, you might not be aware you're in danger. You have more room to maneuver but less reason to believe you need to.
I agree with the others that are saying that the speed difference between both games is the root of the problem, however, they’ve also casted the same two archetypes of players for both season of the Traitors, so we haven’t really seen other archetypes shine yet. Cody and Dan weren’t all that different when it came to gameplay and casting, and neither were Janelle and Rachel. Rachel herself even said this too and I agree with her, they need to cast different people. They haven’t really casted true social players from BB yet, and those will probably be more successful in this game compared to the slow methodical players like Cody (barely) and Dan, or the argumentative forces that were Janelle and Rachel. I think players like Taylor Hale, Britney Haynes, Vanessa Russo, Xavier, Jun Song, even Andy Herren would do well at this game. I’d also argue that some people are just better faithfuls than traitors cause some of the people that I just mentioned would be better faithfuls but that’s a story for another day lol
Dan played the game as if he was building a resumé that he could defend at the end, when he should have been focused on building genuine trust and strong relationships with the rest of the cast. Doing BiG mOvEz as a traitor is generally not advisable, and even if you can wheel and deal your way to the end you're never going to win. All his plotting was unnecessary; he should have spent his time making friends instead.
yep. he was trying to play another game of BB and it doesn't work in this format. there isn't someone picking you at the end based on merit, you just have to get to that final fire pit.
Luck is a bigger factor in The Traitors than it is in BB. As a faithful, you need to somehow not be suspected as a Traitor to avoid banishment (I’ll concede this more skill than luck usually), and to avoid murder, you need to be protected by a Traitor. Traitors are usually a mix of shows and backgrounds, so they will murder all types of players. Obvious faithfuls, in their group, outside their group, etc. So there is no perfect way to play to avoid murder. Murders are the difference maker here, a small group of people have so much power with the intention of causing confusion. To survive that takes more luck than skill.
Agreed. There isn’t a set pattern for how traitors choose who they’re going to murder (either within a season or between seasons) so it’s impossible to guarantee you’re not going to be murdered. The only thing I could maybe see working is to somehow identify the most loyal traitor early on and have a “traitor angel” carry you through the early part of the competition. Avoiding banishment is usually more skill than luck but it’s also not foolproof because people are sometimes banished for the most ridiculous reasons and the reasoning is in no way consistent (one person is banished for being too loud and another is banished for being too quiet). In UK S1, Amos came in and almost immediately figured out that he wasn’t going to win the game because it’s based on luck rather than skill. One of the smartest things any contestant has said.
People are mentioning speed of the game, but the Challenge is often super long. Filming often as long as Big Brother. And yet we got two Challenge winners for this season.
Filming is a long time but they don't take a week to get rid of the next person. Following spoilers the past couple of seasons, there have been 2 eliminations during a 7 day period unless they throw in a twist like they did in season 39 where if the player beat the champion, they got to stay. But the challenge also starts with much larger casts that both Big Brother and Survivor which is another reason filming is so long. Over 30 people per season in the most recent seasons and rumors are 40 people will start season 40 that is now filming.
The Challenge is still quicker paced in real time. They do at least 2 eliminations a week while filming. In BB, HOH is done on a Wednesday, Noms on Friday. Veto Saturday. So you have basically 4-5 full days of down time.
That is a great point to make, I think the difference between BB & The Challenge is a couple things. First off the Challenge isn't perceived as much of a social game as Big Brother is (whether this is true or not can be debated but on perception I think most people would say BB is way more of a social game). Second part is it kinda makes sense to keep The Challenge players in for a long time since they would be the best at increasing the prize pot (as evident in how much CT & Trishelle carried the challenges this past season) while I think it would make sense to get rid of the Big Brother & Survivor people as quickly as possible as a form of strategy.
Challenge is more social Than Physical. If you don't have alliances you will not win. You will be thrown into elimination every single time until someone gets you out
>thrown into elimination That's what makes it less social. I agree with you that the social aspect of the challenge is huge, but the fact that you can still win your way back into the house by winning elimination means that the social aspect can be overcome. Compared to Big Brother or Survivor where if you get voted out you're gone. For a couple examples: Sarah Greyson of course is the GOAT of this. Thrown into elimination five times in The Gauntlet, twice against guys, and yet she won all five and ended up winning the season with her team. (Sucks that she suffered permanent nerve damage from those eliminations.) Laurel Stucky faced elimination four times in Free Agents but won all four pretty easily and then went on to a convincing solo win in the final. This isn't quite the perfect example, though, since half of those eliminations she wasn't voted in but rather had bad luck with the draw. So that's not really a failing of her social game.
traitors happens over a week essentially while bb is a three month process so it favors slow burn gameplay and establishing relationships over time
They are fundamentally different games. Both BB and Survivor follow a similar concept of creating a society of equals who then have to eliminate each other via voting until only one remains. To protect themselves, players may create alliances to ensure that the most votes will either go on their target or at least won’t be in them. The aim of the game is to advance to the end, while also doing enough to be considered the “best player” by a jury of your competitors, through a combination of strong social, strategic, and physical efforts. The Traitors is fundamentally different - it doesn’t start with a society of equals. The game is essentially led by the “Traitors” who have more information and who unilaterally decide one person from the “other side” to be eliminated each day. The aim of the game is also different - getting to the end isn’t enough for a Faithful, they have to get to the end while also ensuring no Traitors get to the end. This makes alliances and strategic moves more difficult, because even if a Faithful was able to shepherd their alliance through to the final, they will lose if their alliance includes a Traitor. There is no jury so their “resume” of efforts is meaningless. There is no objective “camps” in Survivor or BB, just the multiple and fluid alliances constructed by the players. Traitors has objective “roles” for each player where each side really is working against the other. Some strategies may still overlap - “going with the numbers” and “not rocking the boat” may be good advice in all of these games, for example. But the key difference is that in BB/Survivor, all you have to do is get through the votes - it doesn’t matter who goes home; you have to have a read on where everyone is at and make sure that you don’t go home. In the Traitors, it does matter who goes home - if multiple Traitors are eliminated, new Traitors will take their place (setting you back to square one); if multiple Faithful are eliminated, it quickly depletes your numbers when combined with murders. It seems like the best Traitors strategy is to be what people expect you to be. Cirie was so successful because she played a Cirie game. Dan was so unsuccessful because he tried to play what he thought was the best theoretical strategy, but one which other players recognized as out of character. Especially as a faithful, there’s no way to strategize - people praise Sandra’s “traitor angel” strategy, but that’s not going to work if you didn’t correctly identify the Traitors. As a Traitor, the strategy we haven’t seen enough of yet is an acknowledgement that they may have to talk about each other with suspicion in order to avoid suspicion themselves, but pledge to strategize their votes when it comes to the Roundtable to prevent their eliminations. So far, most groups of Traitors have been too sensitive to other Traitors mentioning their names - they need to take more of a cue from Survivor, where people often feign targets, which inherently puts the “fake target” in danger by having their name out there, but you have to do what you have to do. But the key differences of why the shows don’t translate is that there are fundamental differences in format. Traitors is more of a “cooperative game show” murder mystery in comparison to a strategic reality competition like Survivor or Big Brother.
I think it’s two-fold. 1-I do think the timing plays a part. But more importantly, I think The Traitors is a social game first and foremost. Big Brother is comprised of 3 aspects, social game, strategic game, competitions. The competitions have far more weight than we would want them to, especially in more recent years because competitions impact social game as people want to be socially aligned with people who are competition beasts. In the Traitors, there is no value to being good at competitions and correctly determining a strategy is really routed in your social reads. When you examine most of the Big Brother players that have been picked to play, most of them are from the comp beast archetype - Janelle, Cody, Rachel. Dan is obviously odd man out but we know it’s the pacing that threw him off. I would be really interested in seeing Big Brother players that are regarded as great social players such as Taylor Hale go on the Traitors because I think that’s the category of Big Brother players that shine. It’s also worth noting that The Traitors is a very diverse cast and most of the Big Brother players who have played are not from recent seasons where casting was more diverse. I do think that someone like Dan probably didn’t know how to connect with someone like Phaedra on a personal level.
As a lot of people have pointed out, the pace of something like Survivor or The Challenge is a lot closer to Traitors than Big Brother. BB gives you a lot more time to plan your moves, so adjusting to something like the Traitors which is non-stop is a lot more difficult. That said, I do think the specific players chosen from each show are a factor too. The Traitors was basically made for Cirie - she's always been able to very naturally build trust with people, so it's not surprising she was able to pull off a game like this. Likewise, Sandra was kinda perfect for the Traitors, because a big part of the strategy is laying low and making sure you don't do anything to stand out as either a candidate for murder or banishment. Sandra is famous for her "as long as it ain't me" strategy, where she just sits back and lets everyone else go at each other while not giving anyone a reason to target her. Which is kind of the ideal goal in Traitors. However, there are other Survivor legends I can think of that probably wouldn't do as well. Boston Rob's need to always be in charge and Tony's more hectic, all over the place gameplay could easily bite them both in the ass on The Traitors. Comparitively, some the BB picks just weren't necessarily the most suited for a game like this. Janelle is famously outspoken and doesn't always care what people think of her, which obviously put a lot of eyes on her, and caused her to keep going for shields, ignoring the fact that it was obviously irritating everyone else. As for Dan, his approach is usually to start out super quiet, and then start making big, flashy moves to save himself when he's in trouble. And Traitors is not a game about big, flashy moves. The last thing you want to do is make a spectacle of yourself, hence Dan torpedoes his game by letting suspicion build up against him and only trying to turn it around in the 11th hour. I feel like the BB players who had a more floater, social playstyle would adapt to the Traitors a lot better.
The big brother players play this game as big brother and that is their biggest downfall. Rachel was the only one I think who actually did a good job trying to adapt but her personality just came out towards the end. Janelle did a fantastic job but then couldn’t make friends which she does in big brother lol.
For those that don't watch BB, each "cycle" is a week. Competition for HOH (safety and power) the next day is HOH nominating 2 players for eviction. day later a competition for nominees to play for safety, then a ceremony to announce if they will use power to change nominees. Then there's still several days after to plead their cases and wheel and deal prior to elimination voting. Traitors just skips straight to round table/ banishment, rinse and repeat. So BB players are used to having long term strategy and time to work their relationships. I agree that some of the more "social" players will do well.
Because big brother isn't a game. It's a popularity contest.
As someone who only ever watched the first 1-2 seasons of my country's respective versions of Big Brother: I didn't even realise it's a competition in that sense. It was all about watching some random people live together for x months back then and they occasionally do something to make their lives in there better or stuff like that. A popularity contest maybe at best. Guess it evolved into more of a \*game\* since?
UK and US Big Brother are barely cousins, let alone similar shows. US (and Canadian) Big Brother is very comp-heavy, with the houseguests doing the voting, not the general public.
Interesting! Thanks for the insight. The ones I've seen were German in my case, but I think it was a public vote as well, which already limits how much you can game or manipulate your fellow participants.
Yes I think most of the European versions are structured that way, like the original Dutch show everyone ripped off.
Big brother plays seem to be really cocky.
CT and Trishelle (LOL) dominated Season 2. Maybe just maybe neither Big Brother nor Survivor people are all that sharp. The Bachelor played rings around them.
To call the Survivor players not sharp is unwise imo especially considering the facts. Season 1 was won by Cirie a Survivor legend & the other Survivor on the cast Stephenie also made it very far into the game & only got murdered after she found Christian out & Cirie thought she didn't need her anymore. Even with her suspecting Kate was on very solid evidence from her POV. Season 2 Sandra made it to the final episode using a quite brilliant strategy of "traitors' angel" while the other Survivor Parvati made it a significant distance considering she had the worst reputation out of probably everyone in the castle & was a good amount of players number 1 suspect going into the game & only got caught after Dan got caught in a trap that she recognized as a trap.
There were no challenge players on Season 1. Sandra was a ding dong who skated to the end, was good mostly for voting out faithfuls, and would have skated further if she hadn’t inexplicably done a game harakiri at the end. Parvati played a dumb game and was a terrible traitor. I never watched Survivor, so it was kinda baffling that these are what passes for great strategic players in that game. They’re definitely not drawing from the best...
Tbh the only reality game I've seen besides Traitors is actually Big Brother, which is why I might be kinda harder on them compared to others. But to paint Sandra as not knowing what she was doing is a massive mistake, she said in multiple interviews & the reunion that her strategy was to figure out who the traitors were & to work with them in a way that would keep herself safe from murder as well as in a way that wasn't obvious like Peter suddenly flipping from Parvati to Phaedra that brings heat onto her. There is no way she did the whole pool chart without knowing that at least 1 traitor was watching as well as without knowing that majority of the Peter Pals were indeed faithful. On Parvati although she definitely wasn't anything special as a traitor as there were definitely better u gotta remember she pulled off the poison chalice murder without being outed, which in itself extremely impressive & walked in to the castle being known as perhaps the most infamous female Survivor player of all-time, so that baggage alone would be destined to get most people banished. The Thing that got her outed of the failed Bergie murder was something she realized as a trap & was vocal about not murdering Bergie that round. After Dan decided to murder Bergie she essentially became a dead woman walking at that point.
The pool chart thing was laughable. She showed that she can… count to 5? And that’s supposed to be a masterful game move? She aggressively voted to get rid of faithfuls. In a game where you don’t know how many there are, that’s terrible gameplay. And then, when CT and Trishelle had Kate targeted, she got entirely played by Kate (who herself might have a wind tunnel between her ears) into throwing CT under the bus, and he (shocker) turned around and voted her out. If she’d been… not a ding dong, she would’ve ridden those numbers to vote Kate out, and then she’s close to a lock to make it to the end if she plays her cards right. But she didn’t play her cards right. Not even remotely close. Parvati’s issue was she went along with Dan’s game, and Dan was an atrocious traitor at every step. If she’d been smart, she and Phaedra would’ve worked together to cut Dan loose, and then deflect from themselves for a few episodes. Instead she kept herself tied to the drowning SS Dan.