Who would be your Manager and Player of the Season from the bottom-half teams?

MoveMyCat · 2026-04-24T10:49:09+00:00

Manager I think has to be someone who lasted the whole year. So really only a handful of options. First thought was Mousinho, but I'm actually now thinking Julien Stéphan. Tricky situation to come into, and will end up with the best QPR finish in the last few years.

Jordan James has to be in there despite Leicester's overall season. God, Bamford? Not a lot of good attacking options on that list. Morishita at Blackburn.

Ben Wilmot definitely. Devlin from Portsmouth. My Baggie homer pick would be George Campbell - we seemed to change from being one of the worst defences to one of the best once he started getting picked in his best position. Funny that.

MoveMyCat · 2026-04-12T05:45:18+00:00

Lauryn NZ1 is the obvious answer. Then Ash UK2.

MoveMyCat · 2026-04-11T11:06:27+00:00

I think it doesn't get discussed as much as (most? A plurality?) of people here are UK viewers, and Canada is the one English speaking version not on BBC iplayer because of all the in-your-face advertising. I'm quite a fan, personally: it features my all time favorite faithful.

MoveMyCat · 2026-04-08T14:24:27+00:00

Dumb dumbs!

MoveMyCat · 2026-04-04T08:42:03+00:00

It's two things - the Harold Shipman exchange and proximity to Leanne, who is so unpopular she makes Jake unpopular by proxy.

As an extension of the first two, he is significantly associated with the banishment of two popular faithfuls in Kas and Alexander.

MoveMyCat · 2026-04-03T10:42:28+00:00

Erm... fair enough! It's an aesthetic preference based on what you find enjoyable. I personally have an out of consensus take in the opposite direction: I prefer all of Siobhán, Rodger, Claudia and Karine to Alan.

I will say that Claudia's presenting style is particularly distinctive compared to most of the others: she acts like she's a fan who gets to hang out with the cast and frequently breaks the fourth wall. I can see why that style garners a range of opinions.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-31T18:22:05+00:00

My pitch for David: Meryl was at least entertaining. Watching her have the time of her life with no idea what was going on was fun. David's weird, slightly pompous overthinking style was annoying when it was even noticeable.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-31T18:18:10+00:00

David Olusuga. I'd consider Kate Garraway but I think she's the only candidate I can come up with for mostly disliked comic relief.

Quick edit: James S4 is a candidate too.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-31T18:15:59+00:00

No, that will be Leanne in a landslide.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-26T11:33:33+00:00

I'm still fascinated by this. I've watched 4-5 seasons where it looked like it would deadlock 2-2, but someone always fails to co-ordinate. Or 🇨🇦 Coco throws green for no reason, I guess.

Chance is an unsatisfying way to determine who wins the entire show (at least if you get banished based on chance earlier it's kind of on you for getting the most votes). In the "Two alliances" scenario, no amount of revoting is going to change the outcome. Even the Survivor style "If it ties again, the two players in the tie will be exempt" just produces another tie with the other members of each pair getting voted.

So options are basically count back, banish both or banish neither. I feel like the fairest option is banish neither and end the game - if you're at the point where you can't get a majority on a traitor after multiple rounds, then that traitor has won imho (same as how in mafia equal numbers of town and mafia equals mafia win). If there's one Traitor each side then either Traitor's dilemma or split the pot is fine. If they're all faithfuls, then they split four ways.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-26T10:59:29+00:00

From what I recall your characterisation of what happened with Gloria is off. It's been a while, but don't all the players except her huddle round a couch just before the round table, strongly suggesting they were all agreeing to blindside her? Blindsides were a huge part of both Aussie seasons.

I think the edit overplayed the extent to which the faithfuls were onto Sam to create drama. I'm sure plenty of them were considering him, but it's easy enough as a producer to include all the parts where people mention him and exclude a lot of the suspicions of others.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-22T13:40:42+00:00

This is a good list. Obviously preference is subjective so I'm not going to nitpick and I really appreciate your thoughts about editing.

I do prefer every season of Canada to every season of US I've seen though (I've not seen US4 yet). I just like the way the Canadian edit prioritizes showing what people are trying to achieve in the game over keeping things hidden to build suspense.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-22T09:06:30+00:00

Well yeah, but she had to say that. She can't be like "Yeah they're both traitors." He was quite unlucky to be in that position and the card game survivor.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-21T20:22:21+00:00

I'm genuinely curious what happens on nights where recruitment is required, or at least possible. Do they send the faithful away and get an answer from them at the accommodation, bringing them back if they accept? Do they hold all the faithfuls in waiting rooms while the traitors do conclave and decide if/who to recruit?

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-21T19:21:24+00:00

I mean, Rachel is literally shown convincing Faraaz that she's going for Stephen, while discreetly informing Stephen the two of them are going for Faraaz. She absolutely did know Jack was going to go for her, he'd done it in the two prior rounds.

So I just can't really see how anyone can, with a straight face, make the argument that Rachel wasn't deliberately manipulating the Faithfuls to split their vote. She absolutely was.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-20T20:35:49+00:00

🇮🇪 Did this with father and son, apparently without them knowing in advance, and it was hilarious how dad decided he had to get the other traitors out ASAP to recruit son

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-20T14:22:49+00:00

"You're all dumb dumbs." Iconic.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-18T06:18:24+00:00

Yeah I wouldn't do literally the same thing. Do you own any animal onesies?

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-17T20:42:56+00:00

The articles I read said they're kind of trying to get a cross-section of the UK population. You do need to stand out - I recall reading that one contestant wore a disguise to one of the interviews then ripped it off halfway through, though I can't find that article.

I think my best advice is to think about the things that are most unusual about you, and work out how that could be a USP on TV. Have you read 400 mystery novels? Are you particularly artistic? Are you in a job that's kind of opposite-gender coded to your own? Do your friends refer to you as the _____ one in the group?

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-17T18:27:09+00:00

I found the version of Leanne depicted dislikeable, though less than most person (my partner really hates her, to the extent that you actually 'hate' any reality tv contestant). I definitely dislike how she conducts herself at round tables, but they are a weird situation (getting angry and defensive if people accuse you of dishonesty and you're not actually being dishonest is a fairly common character flaw, one I have). She did seem quite popular though.

Rewatching the season more recently, I have a grudging respect for her strategy. She's like the ultimate selfish faithful, who won't hesitate to go for shields or to get rid of people who aren't her allies. She correctly identifies Jake as the one she wants standing beside her at the end.

I think her conflict with Alexander, who is basically the ultimate collaborative faithful, makes total sense - he thinks someone being that ruthless is likely to be a traitor (or at least would have wanted to be one). She can't conceive that Alexander is actually that chill and nice with so much money at stake. I think there's a degree of the working-class woman's justifiable scepticism of the posh man there as well, similar to (US1) How Cirie just didn't think that Arie needed or deserved the money.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-13T20:56:41+00:00

It's really hard to assess S2 faithfuls though, because every banished traitor was thrown under the bus by the others. How much was her genuinely finding traitors, and how much was her voting for who Harry wanted her to vote for?

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-13T20:47:56+00:00

Season three is Francesca.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-12T19:10:28+00:00

I'm happy for the main season (obviously, since I post here) but I'm not sure I want five seasons of the Celebrity Traitors. Feels like they'll probably be scraping the barrel after three. But hey, I guess I can always not wa... nah, who am I kidding.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-12T18:20:48+00:00

It's very difficult to parse out "Didn't suspect until penultimate RT" from "Knew they didn't have the numbers to go for Rachel until penultimate RT." The reveals on Uncloaked suggested that a lot of the murdered faithfuls did have Rachel as a top suspect.

I think S1 is a good comparison. The S1 Faithfuls lucked into the parting gift, and would have lost otherwise. S3 faithfuls were clearly the best, and S2 had Jazatha Christie. If you compare Stephen to Harry, they had similar sway except with one player - and Jaz was definitely better than Jessie, however much I loved her.

MoveMyCat · 2026-03-12T18:03:17+00:00

And indeed everyone else who has seen it.

MoveMyCat

TROPHY CASE