The castle doors are opening again tonight, and this time you don’t need a Real Housewives tagline, a Survivor résumé or years of reality-TV experience to get murdered.
The Traitors: New Blood premieres tonight, September 17, at 8/7c on NBC, with Alan Cumming returning to preside over another round of lying, scheming, banishments and suspicious breakfasts.
The big difference? These aren’t the reality stars and celebrities we’ve gotten used to watching turn on each other.
They’re regular people.
Twenty-two of them, to be exact, selected from more than 80,000 applicants and dropped into Ardross Castle in Scotland to compete for a prize pot worth up to $250,000.
And there’s an East Tennessee connection in the castle this time.
Sevier County may be best known in the entertainment world as Dolly Parton’s hometown, but apparently it has a Traitor problem now, too. Gatlinburg realtor Logan Smith is among the 22 players competing on New Blood.
Welcome to the Castle, Normies
The premise is the same: some players will secretly become Traitors while the Faithful try to figure out who is lying to their faces before they’re murdered from the game or banished at the Round Table.
You know, normal vacation stuff.
What changes with New Blood is that we don’t already know these people.
Part of the fun of the celebrity version is thinking we do. We’ve watched some of them form alliances, flip tables, win competitions and hold grudges on television for years. They arrive at the castle with reputations, relationships and plenty of reality-TV baggage already attached.
This time, we get none of that.
Who is naturally suspicious? Who is actually lying? Who just has a face that makes everybody think they’re lying?
Good luck with that last one.
The cast comes from around the country with a wide range of backgrounds — from a nurse and astrophysicist to a funeral director and barrel racer.
Don’t Worry — The Celebrity Version Isn’t Going Anywhere
For fans who enjoy watching reality-TV veterans turn on each other over breakfast, there’s no need to panic.
New Blood isn’t replacing Peacock’s familiar version of The Traitors. This is a separate NBC edition built around a new cast of players.
So we’ll still get our reality stars behaving badly in a Scottish castle.
Tonight, though, the normies get the keys.
The Traitors: New Blood premieres with a special two-hour episode Thursday, September 17 at 8/7c on NBC, with episodes available to stream the following day on Peacock.
Featured image: Courtesy of NBC
