Since The Celebrity Traitors returned this month, it's all we've been able to talk about. We're simply not interested unless it's a conversation about tactics in the turret, Claudia Winkleman's high fashion looks, or Richard E Grant's hilarious blunder.
Racing towards the final, we've already had five contestants banished and three murdered. But amongst all this treachery, fans have spotted one mysterious detail on the show that they can't quite work out. Viewers have noticed that the watches worn by our famous cast members are blurred out, obscuring the time.
The show is notoriously secretive, with production going to great lengths to keep up the mystery of the game. Celebrity contestants are allowed minimal contact with their family members during filming and are under strict NDAs to not spill anything about the events of the show until it’s finished.
So, we have some theories why the time might also be a give away producers would rather avoid. Here’s what we know.
Why are watches blurred out on The Celebrity Traitors?
Savvy viewers have noticed that the faces on the watches worn by The Celebrity Traitors’ contestants, including Sharon Rooney, Miranda Hart, and Ross Kemp, have been consistently blurred. It's sparked an entire Reddit thread dedicated to working out the reason why. 'I’m really curious as to the timeline,' wrote one user, while another added, 'I'm surprised they have watches'.
The main reason producers wouldn’t want the real time to be revealed is continuity. Clips filmed at different times of the day will be edited together to construct a clear narrative for episodes. This is very typical of any reality TV format, but for a show like The Traitors, which relies on maintaining the suspense of the game and immersing viewers in the antics of the castle, it’s especially important.
Super fans of the show may have clocked that even getting to wear a watch is a new privilege for this cohort of contestants. Historically, in the civilian version of the show and the celebrity spin off, the cast has been banned from wearing watches.
Series two winner, Harry Clark, told the BBC, 'You get picked up in the morning and when filming is over, you get dropped back to the lodgings. I don’t know what time the mission starts or when lunch is – we rely on the production team to direct us and in between, we all just sit around and chat.' Meanwhile, Nick Mohammed, a finalist from season one of the celeb spin off, said that they 'weren’t even allowed to know the time'.
The BBC hasn't explicitly confirmed a rule change, but we can assume that they've accepted a more lenient approach this season by allowing celebs to wear watches while filming. Some fans have suggested that offering stars a bit more freedom could have helped the broadcaster bag such an A-list line up.