Killing time?

A crowd of mourners dressed in dark clothes follow a funeral carriage driven by four black horses. As the mourners enter the woods, they find three coffins lying open beside a grave. Then the undertaker announces that one of them will die that day.

This was the scene in last Wednesday's episode of The Traitors, an addictive gameshow from the BBC. In that episode a popular contestant, Diane Carson, learnt that she had to leave the show. The funeral procession was her final farewell.

The concept for The Traitors is simple. Twenty-two players gather in a castle, hoping to win a cash prize. Three of those players are Traitors, working together to "murder" the other contestants. The rest of the players are the Faithful, who have to guess which contestants are responsible for the killings.

Episodes of The Traitors are watched by an average of 5.4 million people.¹ An accompanying app, podcast, puzzle book and board game have all been created, as well as copycat versions across the world.  

Season Two is already getting rave reviews. According to one critic, the new series is "so thrilling it will make you gasp and yelp".² But what is the secret to the show's popularity?

Spooky setting. The gameshow occurs in Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands. The gothic architecture gives a sense of menace, while keeping contestants in one place means the pressure builds.

Guilty secrets. It is not just that three of the players are traitors. Other contestants have their own secrets too. And the show is cleverly structured so that each episode brings another surprise.

Mission impossible. The contestants are competing for a cash prize, which can reach £120,000, depending on how they perform in a series of challenges. Whether sailing across a loch or firing crossbows in a church, it all adds to the drama.

Table talk. Each night the players sit round a table to vote off a suspected traitor. This means angry accusations, tearful defences, shouting, pleading, and - typically - an innocent faithful being banished from the show.

Backing the baddies. If one of the traitors survives until the final round, they win the prize. Even though the traitors lie and cheat, many viewers hope they will escape undetected. So the show makes traitors of the rest of us too.

Fans of the show say it has revived reality TV. Because the players do not know who to trust, it creates fascinating examples of herd mentality. Suspicion, plotting, back-stabbing - The Traitors has all the psychological tension of a novel.    

However, critics warn that watching television can lower your IQA means of measuring human intelligence. A person's IQ is usually ascertained by making them sit a standardised test. Some have criticised these tests as a means of evaluating intelligence, claiming that they ignore much of what it means to be intelligent.. Respected scientist Dr Ryan Dougherty has shown that people who watch an above average amount of television have reduced brain volume.³ Much better to read a book or play a board game.

But perhaps the two pursuits have more in common than meets the eye. The Traitors shows viewers how we suspect people for the smallest reasons, succumbFail to resist a negative force, or die from an illness or injury. to peer pressure, and are desperate to know what happens after a cliff-hanger. All lessons a good novel will teach too.

Is this the new Dickens?

Yes: The Traitors shows how reality television can be as complicated and rewarding as any novel. Only a snob would say that books are automatically better.

No: Reality television might be addictive, but it never has the richness or depth you can find in fiction. People pretend otherwise because they're too lazy to read.

Or... Many of the pleasures of a good book - moving characters, atmospheric locations, gripping plots - can be found on television too. One does not need to replace the other.