Dr. Will Kirby On Why ‘Big Brother’ Players Suck at ‘The Traitors’

By Emma Chance | TV | February 16, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | TV | February 16, 2024 |

If you aren’t watching season 2 of The Traitors right now, you must not be a reality TV/reality competition show fan. The cast this time is comprised of Bravo people, Survivor people, Big Brother people, The Challenge people, dating show people, and former Speaker of the House of Commons and Member of Parliament, John Bercow. It’s basically my Olympics.

Former Big Brother contestant and winner Will Kirby—also known as Dr. Will, also known as The Evil Doctor—widely regarded as the best to ever play BB, made a surprise appearance on last night’s Traitors as a creepy cabin-keeper complete with Sherlock Holmes hat, cloak, and a duo of wolves to lead the cast through an escape room challenge straight out of Fear Factor. It was a brief but dramatic cameo, and none of the Bravo people knew who he was.

When asked why he chose to appear this way instead of competing on the show he said, “I’m extremely selective with the projects I participate in because I never want to undermine my true occupational objective,” —okay, I’m listening— “which is to democratize aesthetic dermatological treatments through LaserAway.” Oh.

“That said, I watched the first season and was blown away. It looked like it was from a Tom Cruise movie. We all need hobbies and I love unscripted TV, so it’s much easier for me to parachute into a show and give the contestants a shot in the arm via an incredibly difficult mission as opposed to playing in an extensive competition series myself.”

Or maybe he’d been out of the reality competition show game and didn’t want to look rusty, like the rest of his Big Brother peers.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that the four Big Brother contestants on the first two seasons of The Traitors have done poorly, and I hope the fans don’t chastise me making that factual statement,” he said. “See, I think some Big Brother players went on The Traitors to show that they ‘still got it’—only to realize that they actually ‘never had it,’” he said.

Then he went full Liam Neeson: “It takes an extremely unique skill set to do well on these types of shows, and anyone can get lucky once, but it’s really hard to repeat that success, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t openly wonder if the Big Brother contestants who appeared have really hurt their reality television legacies because of their poor gameplay in this series.”

He has a point, especially if we’re talking about Dan Gheesling, another BB winner who couldn’t hack it on Traitors, mostly because he was powerless against the charismatic sneakiness that is one Phaedra Parks.

“It is possible that we never see any of them on our televisions again,” Kirby concluded. “The reunion show might end up serving as their wakes.” I certainly hope so—just imagine Alan Cumming’s mourning outfit! A girl can dream.