I don't watch much TV — at least not shows that require any significant commitment. I rarely get into drama series, or any fictional show with more than one season (there are exceptions, of course). I usually prefer lighter entertainment on the TV — quiz shows, documentaries, and, until very recently, Strictly Come Dancing.

In the last couple of years, Strictly has had a real fall from grace. It's time for the BBC's latest “famous faces doing entertaining things” programme — The Celebrity Traitors — to take its place.

First, let's talk about the appeal of Strictly. US readers may be familiar with their equivalent Dancing With The Stars. A line-up of nomiminally famous people compete in a ballroom dancing contest, with one celeb and their professional partner-cum-coach getting eliminated each week. The dances, the costumes, and the music (which is all performed live) is a Saturday night's entertainment sorted. It's glitzy, glamorous, and there's plenty of — ahem — talent on display to appeal to all sorts.

Central to the joy of the show is how positive it is. The celebrities are learning to do something hard, and having to train for hours every day. There's a sense of work ethic, despite it all being essentially just a game. But most importantly, these people have already made it. No one is getting their dreams crushed in front of the nation when it doesn't go to plan. The show originates in the 00s, where other entertainment shows — mostly the creations of Simon Cowell — delighted in humiliating hopeful contenders (this was part of a general trend in 00s TV of some serious punching down and, to be fair, later iterations of the X-factor and Britain's Got Talent are noticeably less cruel). In Strictly, everyone is supportive, criticism is given and received graciously, and there's no grubby feeling of having witnessed somebody's misery being exploited for the nation's amusement.

Which is why it is a shame the show is now mired in scandal. Strictly has always had minor scandals — mostly affairs and flings between celebrities and their professional partners (let's be real though, this was also always part of the fun). But now the scandals are more serious. Safeguarding failures, abuse, rape accusations, and drug use (although does anyone seriously think the competitive ballroom scene isn't rife with this?). The BBC has had to kick several professionals out, and there are ongoing police investigations into some of them. The show's longtime hosts Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly have quit, and let's be real, the calibre of celebrity has started to wane too (perhaps inevitable, as they simply run out of willing big names).

Thankfully, there's a new way to get your fix of Claudia Winkleman presenting famous faces playing an ultimately inconsequential game that they'll take extremely seriously for several episodes and then claim it has literally changed their lives. The Celebrity Traitors — think like a giant game of Among Us or Werewolf played out over several days — has come at just the right time (probably not by accident). And it has pulled some seriously big names — bona fide national treasures. By watching them try to deceive and suss each other out, we're getting to see them in a whole new way. Heck, I actually kind of like Alan Carr now.

I never watched the original The Traitors but as I understand it, the celebrity edition has had a very different feel because the stars already all like each other and thus playing too “nice” and putting too much stock in their pre-existing friendships, apparently constantly forgetting that they're playing a game where they have to lie and pretend to murder one another. This has meant the non-traitor Faithful team have been uniquely incompetent in the show's history. But it doesn't matter. It's still great fun to watch them flounder. We can only imagine that in future series, the line-up will be willing to play much more cut-throat.

And that's just it. There will be future series, because The Celebrity Traitors has been outrageously successful. And they will thus be able to attract stars of a similar calibre. What they need to do is run two series a year. In summer, run the regular normie Traitors for the purists. But in the autumn/winter, they need TCT to supplant Strictly as their flagship Saturday night entertainment. At the moment, TCT runs twice a week on weeknights, making its run relatively short, and also not the best night for settling down to a silly but fairly long show. Get rid of Strictly, put TCT on a Saturday, make it longer, air once a week so it runs most of the autumn, and I will be a happy viewer of trivial entertainment.