I worked out that, over the past four months, I have spent two entire days watching The Traitors. Forty-eight hours of my one-and-only life gone, just like that. Ah, well. In October, the celebrity one lured me in like a box propped up by a stick with a piece of cheese underneath. Then over a couple of quiet weekends, I tore through every season of the regular version. At that point, I felt like I'd ODd on the format - there are only so many iterations of the same challenge (oh, they're on the loch again, are they?) you can sit through without hitting the fast-forward button.

Still, as I recovered from a sinus infection over Christmas, I scrabbled around desperately for a show to send me catatonic and pass the time. The Traitors US was just sitting there on iPlayer. With no small deal of shame, I cracked on, getting straight into the meat of its acclaimed third season.

The first thing to clarify here - if you're a fan of our Traitors, the American one has a steep entry point. There's no Claudia Winkleman - in her place is Alan Cumming, doing a hammed-up Scottish accent, in increasingly eyesore-y outfits. This is a tough trade-off to make. Winkleman is such a uniquely enjoyable presenter. She's so invested and funny and strange - it's a big part of what makes the show so enjoyable. Cumming is a little over theatrical and a tad removed from the emotional thrum of the show. You kind of just have to ignore that and zone in on the action. Which isn't hard, because let me tell you, these Americans are nuts. Most of them are veterans from the reality TV cesspit - a ghoul from Big Brother here, a hardheaded dunce from Survivor there. You may be familiar with some of them, but I wasn't. Dorinda from The Real Housewives of The Netherworld, or something like that? Tom Sandoval, a remarkably stupid man who has apparently disgraced himself and several ex-partners on a show called Vanderpump Rules? Sure. There is also, inexplicably, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a second cousin of the King, who may well be the dullest man who has ever clawed his way onto television. Everyone else, though, ooooh boy - their ferocity, arrogance, and vocal volume make the roundtables in The Traitors UK look like a guided meditation. They're not people you'd want to share a bottle of wine with, no, but their power as entertainers is undeniable.

Here's the key difference that makes this season stand out from the UK version - in an exhilarating bit of manipulation, the producers pick three extremely headstrong, forthright contestants as Traitors (one of whom is a guy called, and I shit you not, Boston Rob) and they pretty much immediately turn on each other. The first bit of traitor-on-traitor violence comes in episode four, and they are never fully united again. In the UK version, we've seen traitors go for each other here and there, and the odd awkward reunion in the turret. But here, every single turret meeting is as tense as hell. The back half of the season centres on a prolonged standoff between two traitors, as Carolyn (off of Survivor) and Danielle (off of Big Brother) relentlessly attempt to get each other banished without revealing their own nefarious identities. It is pure cinema.

The truth is, Americans are just made for this stuff. They elected a reality-TV president, for God's sake. Ivar Mountbatten's stint here is evidence that Brits really can't hang with these attention seekers. At one point, a fellow contestant starts talking about him at the breakfast table, having glazed over his presence a few seats away. Elsewhere, someone wonders aloud why he hasn't been murdered, as his absence would only be felt through fewer cups of tea. They still don't think he's a traitor, though, because he hasn't got the minerals.

Maybe the Brits just aren't cut out for it, not at this level. And that's OK. Just sit back and enjoy the carnage.

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