The hit TV reality show The Traitors was originally going to involve a recreation of a real-life murderous mutiny onboard a 17th-century Dutch ship, with programme contestants pushed into the sea when voted out.
Jasper Hoogendoorn, who oversaw the programme’s development, said the show was inspired by the voyage of the Batavia, a Dutch ship which was shipwrecked off Australia in 1629.
Hoogendoorn said the TV programme originally was going to be called The Mutineers and would have closely tracked the historical incident. “It was an old Dutch story. In 1629 300 Dutch people went to Indonesia with big treasure on the ship. There were some people who became mutineers and they were shipwrecked on a very small island off the coast of Australia.”
The Batavia, part of a fleet sailing for the Dutch East India Company, became stranded on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands off Western Australia. The survivors split into factions and started killing each other; only 129 people remained at the eventual rescue, and the tale has often provided inspiration for writers.
Hoogendoorn said at the Edinburgh TV festival: “It’s a story about people who murder each other, backstab each other, betray each other. It’s a horrible story. But it was such a fascinating story and I was thinking it’s also exciting. It’s so exciting to read that story and that’s where the whole idea came to create the show.”
The massive cost of staging the programme on a ship counted against it. But the idea of a mutiny and rival factions working against each other remained as the plan was revised. A later proposal suggested staging the show in the Moroccan desert, before the Dutch broadcaster RTL asked for it to be filmed in a castle.
The Traitors has since become a global hit with a British version presented by Claudia Winkleman, an Australian edition presented by Rodger Corser, and a US version hosted by Alan Cumming.
The television executive Stephen Lambert, whose studio makes the UK and US editions of The Traitors, said the decision to include celebrity contestants in the US gave the show “a slightly different taste”, adding: “The American audience are used to their reality shows being very strategic and underhand.”
Lambert also said the show was a hit with audiences because viewers knew in advance who were the traitors. “That makes viewers feel great,” he said. “That all adds to the pleasure. It’s like watching a modern-day version of a witchcraft trial.”
