When will The Traitors return? What we know now.

The Traitors is the best new reality competition and format in years, maybe decades.

Of its English-language versions that premiered over the last few months, two of them—the US and UK versions—have been renewed by their respective networks, Peacock and BBC One.

(The Australian version has not yet been renewed, though there’s news about that below.)

More Traitors is certainly exciting, because I’m just desperate for more. So when will get those new seasons? Not any time soon, alas.

The Traitors US and UK season 2 are now casting

When Peacock announced The Traitors was being renewed, it did not give any indication of when the second season might premiere. Ditto for The BBC, which announced the renewal in late February.

They did confirm both Alan Cumming and Claudia Winkleman will return as hosts, thankfully, but said little else.

However, there is some official and revealing information in the world. If you want to be on The Traitors, the UK casting application is now open. So is the US casting application.

The US’s application’s terms and conditions say “Filming will take place in the UK, and we will arrange all necessary travel for the successful applicants to attend filming.”

(The UK application does not mention that because, well, they’re casting people in the UK.)

The US casting site doesn’t go any further, like to say the show will be filmed in Scotland, where Ardross Castle is located. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it return there, though of course it could also switch locations, for creative or logistical reasons.

Both applications have the same due date: July 31, 2023, and both also say “the Closing Date may be extended or closed, for any reason, at our discretion without notice.”

More significantly, the applications say filming is “currently anticipated to be in Summer / Autumn 2023,” lasting for six weeks, though “this may change at our discretion without notice.”

Since The Traitors doesn’t take six weeks to film a single season, and since both are being produced by Studio Lambert, I’d guess they’ll once again be filming back-to-back, which makes things less expensive for both shows.

I’ll be greedy and say I’d love if they were filming four seasons back to back, so we can have two UK and two US every year, but that may be asking too much.

Assuming casting ends in the summer, and filming starts a month or two later, production on both seasons could end in early fall.

That’d mean late 2023 is the earliest we’d see either show, making it very possible that both the UK version and US version could premiere at roughly the same times they did (late November for UK, January for US).

That may be stretching things, though, and not allowing enough time for post-production. After all, the first seasons filmed in early summer 2022, and then didn’t premiere for another 6 to 8 months, which would mean 2024 premieres for both.

Interestingly, the The Traitors Australia, which has not yet been officially renewed by Network Ten, already closed its season two casting, and says it will be filmed “mid April to mid May 2023. (exact dates to be confirmed)“. That means we could very well have a second Australian version, perhaps even before the US and UK versions are filmed.