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Last week, Alan Cumming\u2019s cunning competition empire The Traitors<\/a> unsheathed its most diabolical twist yet. After four seasons pitting RuGirls against Real Housewives and Love Islanders against Survivor castaways on Peacock, the castle welcomed 22 nonfamous fans to play the game in prime time on NBC with The Traitors: New Blood<\/a>. Studio Lambert, the production company that films all the British and American versions of The Traitors on location at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands, had already made four \u201ccivilian\u201d seasons of The Traitors UK, filmed back to back with the American series. A civilian season for a U.S. network \u201cfelt like a natural fit\u201d for the production team, explains director Ben Archard: \u201cOnce you\u2019ve had so much success with something, it\u2019s really nice to push yourself again. A new type of cast is a great way to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n The result is a fresher, tighter version of the mischievous murder mystery with faster-paced episodes, a cast of unknowns vibrating with excitement, and an even more whimsical and campy tone than its sister series. It\u2019s \u201cpart horror, part thriller, but also kind of part Harry Potter and fantasy,\u201d says executive producer Mike Cotton. The season opens with the recruits meeting each other on a scenic train ride winding through the Highlands, a nod to the castle most Americans associate with the region: Hogwarts. And James and Oliver Phelps, who played the Weasley twins in the Potter series, now serving as Cumming\u2019s groundskeepers. Archard, Cotton, and their colleagues explain how The Traitors made the leap to prime time.<\/p>\n When the U.S. Traitors premiered in 2023, contestants included both civilians and celebrities, from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills\u2019s Brandi Glanville to The Bachelorette\u2019s Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Survivor royalty Cirie Fields, who would go on to win the whole thing. The three seasons that followed cast only celebrities, proven entities with big personalities, so populating New Blood presented a challenge: How to hook a brand-new audience without any recognizable faces? \u201cWe treated it like we were assembling a jury,\u201d says executive producer Mike Cotton. \u201cWe wanted people from all walks of life that would have different skills they could bring to the game one way or another.\u201d<\/p>\n In keeping with The Traitors\u2019 Clue-like aesthetic, casting specifically sought out applicants with jobs that slotted them into murder-mystery archetypes. \u201cYou might have a lawyer,\u201d Cotton says, or in New Blood\u2019s case, a lawyer pretending to be a basketball coach; \u201ca young starlet\u201d\u00a0\u2014\u00a0that is, a content creator \u2014 or \u201ca writer, a classic murder-mystery character.\u201d (One Faithful is an actual writer of murder mysteries.) But no one was locked into a particular role. The contestants \u201chad no preconceptions of one another,\u201d says Cotton. \u201cThey could turn up at that castle and be almost whoever they wanted to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Each contestant ultimately had to pass what Cotton calls the \u201cpub test\u201d: Would you want to hang out at a pub with this person? In the case of gay Texan barrel racer Ben McDonnell or sassy 65-year-old novelist Sherry Kuehl, the answer is absolutely. Producers also wanted to ensure everyone in the cast was a fan of the show and invested in the gameplay. \u201cWe needed to know that they really knew the game inside out and were coming in with their own strategies,\u201d says Cotton. Traitor Tomica Adams gave prime-time-level energy from the moment she walked onto set, eyes widening when talking to others on the train, screaming with glee when Alan emerged from a cloud of blue smoke, and, while sitting down for her entrance interview,\u00a0pointing to the pile of gold doubloons, then to herself while waggling her eyebrows.<\/p>\n New Blood is the first Traitors show to air on American network TV, so it needed to appeal to a newer, broader audience that may not be familiar with the format while condensing the action into a 42-minute episode (much shorter than the flexible times allotted by Peacock and the BBC). \u201cWhat we didn\u2019t want to do for the shorter run time is pack everything in and lose the pacing,\u201d says Cotton. The Peacock version of The Traitors usually follows a set cycle of one day in the castle: going to bed thinking you may be murdered, waking up to see who got eliminated at breakfast, then battling for your place, in your social game and in missions, so you don\u2019t get banished at the roundtable. With New Blood, producers structured each episode to end on a cliffhanger. While that means some episodes don\u2019t have every beat of the Peacock version, every episode will still include at least one roundtable. \u201cThat\u2019s the heart of the show,\u201d says Cotton.<\/p>\n New Blood sets itself apart from its Peacock counterpart because the civilians are much more invested in winning the $250,000 prize at the end of the show, \u201cwhich made betrayal all the greater,\u201d says Cotton. In many cases, they actually need the money: Faithful Abbey Benjamin hopes a win could help fund treatment for her daughter\u2019s rare genetic disorder, while McDonnell wants to put the money back into his Texas farm. New Blood introduces new twists to gameplay to capitalize on that tension; this season, the Traitors have a $15,000 bounty on their heads, money that will be added to the prize pot every time the group banishes one. In recent seasons, savvier players have kept quiet at roundtables to avoid drawing attention to themselves. \u201cNow, there\u2019s a financial incentive for them to bring information to the roundtable and try to get someone out as quickly as possible,\u201d says Cotton.<\/p>\n Field director Mark Drake, who oversees the New Blood missions, has heard the complaints about The Traitors\u2019 structure. Before he joined the show, back when the U.K. version first started airing, \u201cPeople would complain that they do all the interesting stuff in the castle, then \u2018They go outside, they run around for a bit, and then they come back,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cFor me, that can\u2019t happen.\u201d Thus, New Blood opens with one of the most creative missions yet, a massive pirate shipwreck in the loch that required the contestants to army-crawl through submerged decks to captains\u2019 quarters, manhandle skeletons, avoid gunpowder explosions, and manipulate working elements such as a pulley to the crows\u2019 nest. \u201cYou need the spectacle,\u201d Drake says of introducing the show to network audiences. \u201cIt needs to look impressive. You need to have explosions. It should feel Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n What sets The Traitors apart from competition series like Survivor or The Challenge is the cinematic, genre-ish angle to all of the missions. \u201cYou could just strap up iPhones and then it would be covered,\u201d says Drake. But his team is always looking for the narrative. \u201cIn this case, it was very much a 1980s childhood adventure: The Goonies, that kind of stuff. How can we create that energy and that adventure and adrenaline?\u201d<\/p>\n For New Blood, the scope of the missions had to be altered to accommodate things like ad breaks, which Drake says clarified how to get right to the twists or the moments that would affect the wider story. \u201cWhatever happens in the mission, I want them to be talking about in the castle,\u201d he says. His team designs and extensively tests the missions to ensure they\u2019re doable for a 20-person cast ranging widely in age and ability. His team also needs to be prepared for any \u201ctwists and turns,\u201d since they only have one chance to film the whole thing: no redos, pickup shots, or pausing the clock. Once Alan says \u201cgo,\u201d they\u2019re off \u2014\u00a0and for Drake, it\u2019s crucial to keep the contestants immersed in \u201ca real bubble\u201d of gameplay, since \u201cthe more real that it is to the cast, the better\u201d it plays out onscreen.<\/p>\n Drake describes the process as akin to filming an action movie but with regular people in lieu of stunt performers. Once the mission begins, his team of camera operators and story producers follow every player\u2019s move and anticipate all approaches to the mission, which, once complete, also provides an opportunity to set up story lines for later. \u201cThere are oodles of boards, people going \u2018Okay, that happened, and what does that mean, and what are the implications,\u2019 all happening in real time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Despite all the planning that goes into the missions, most of the show\u2019s dramatic twists come out of organic gameplay. Because production can\u2019t reshoot anything, the camera only has one chance to capture the drama. \u201cIt runs as live,\u201d Archard explains. \u201cFrom a creative point of view and a directing point of view, no one episode is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Take the \u201cblack banquet\u201d from season four, when Yam Yam Arocho was accused of murdering Natalie Anderson and Kristen Kish in plain sight. As a Faithful, he was actually the murdered one, and as he shouted his innocence across the dinner table, Alan\u2019s \u201cguards\u201d removed him from his seat and escorted from the room. None of that was planned, and it required producers and camerapeople to react to what was happening in real time. They accomplish this with a massive crew: up to 13 manned FX9 cameras, 45 or 46 Robocams in the castle, a crane team, a jib team, a mini-cams team, and a drone team. The setup stayed the same for the switch to NBC, allowing the crew to capture every tiny moment and efficiently craft the story for each episode. The missions also require adaptive thinking on the part of the directors and camera teams; Drake sends the field team daily briefs, but for most missions, there might be less than an hour of setup time before cameras roll.<\/p>\n Like in every season before, the Traitors are not chosen by production before their arrival at the castle. \u201cWe leave it pretty late,\u201d says Archard. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that\u2019s predestined before they come in. Everyone\u2019s got a shot.\u201d The contestants\u2019 individual interviews with Alan at the beginning of the season aren\u2019t just exposition for viewers; they\u2019re actually used by the producers to determine who the first Traitors should be. It\u2019s one of many aspects of the show that may seem planned but is unfurling in real time on set. \u201cWe\u2019ll sit in the office and think, \u2018This twist is going to do this,\u2019 or \u2018This mission is going to do this,\u2019\u201d says Archard, \u201cbut it\u2019s often the things that you don\u2019t imagine in the office that turn out to be the most exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n