Amazing Race & Survivor finale secrets • Kristen Kish's better show • more!
Dear newsletter friends,
It’s been a hot and sweaty week here at reality blurred headquarters in Central Florida, made even hotter and sweatier because, last weekend, our a/c went out. A $300 repair fixed everything—until the whole system died on Wednesday.
Our a/c is exactly 15 years old, having been built and installed in May 2010. I’ve been saving in anticipation of needing to replace it someday, but still, seeing the actual cost 😵💫
I was curious what else was happening 15 years ago today, and it turns out it’s the day Lost ended, the ABC drama that lost its way—you’re welcome for that hot take.
Fun fact: Lost was actually based on Survivor (!), and next Friday is the 25th anniversary of Survivor: Borneo’s premiere (!!).
I’m working on some exciting anniversary Survivor stories for that occasion and this summer. Or at least I will once the new a/c is installed this weekend.
🏝️ CBS reality TV
Survivor 48:
My recap of the finale and its surprises
What Survivor 48 didn’t show us: 7 post-finale revelations 👀
Survivor 50:
The cast will be revealed Wednesday on CBS Mornings
My analysis of the choices we were given for Survivor 50’s game and format
Amazing Race:
🧑🍳 Reviews
HBO Max & ID’s The Bakersfield 3, about three friends who were all murdered or vanished in the same month
🤢 Recaps and a review
Below Deck Down Under:
Top Chef Destination Canada:
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
Premieres this week include the return of the fabulous Couples Therapy, which I highly recommend; a new Netflix dating show, Sneaky Links: Dating After Dark, on which people reunite with their hookups; and new seasons of MasterChef (with new judge Tiffany Derry), Lego Masters, and Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing.
Documentaries premiering focus on subjects such as Paul Reubens, Brett Favre, Wendy Williams, and Dale Earnhardt; plus, the founder of Polaroid and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds.
📖 Write with me
Starting June 18, I’m teaching a creative nonfiction class: six Wednesdays, all online. Write, get feedback, grow! Learn more or sign up here
💬 Comments of the week
This exchange, on my Top Chef recap, continues to make me laugh!
Didn’t that bald chef at the dinner look like a Bond villain?
And Christopher replied:
Tom has always looked like that. 😉
🗞️ Reality TV news
Shows:
17 notable reality TV renewals & announcements from the 2025 upfronts
The revival of Project Runway is getting the coveted timeslot of 10 p.m. Thursdays on Freeform. 🥴
Lifetime lost me with its first three words about its new The Untitled Chrisleys Project: "Beloved TV family." Or maybe Americans do love their imprisoned rich people who are guilty of fraud?
The CW renewed both its game shows, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit, for 30 episodes each. LeVar Burton returns to Trivial Pursuit, but Craig Ferguson will host Scrabble as Raven-Symoné becomes just an EP.
America's Next Great Author, an American Idol-like show for writers, is coming next year to Kanopy, the streaming service available free through libraries and universities, as its first original show.
After auditions, six finalists "will live together in a house for one month, competing to complete 50,000 words as they face life-changing challenges, with the help of celebrity mentors, transforming them from talented amateurs into top-notch professionals," according to a press release.
The show was created by Kwame Alexander, the prolific author of The Crossover and other children's books, along with Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry.
People:
Adam Conover—whose debunking show Adam Ruins Everything was cancelled when truTV was trashed by WarnerMedia—is still debunking on YouTube and elsewhere. So it was a surprise last week when he sold out and posted a paid promotion of a device that Rebecca Watson describes as "a machine that scans your eyeball in exchange for $41 in a cryptocoin so that it can then use your biometric data to verify your identity to various corporations." Adam posted to Bluesky, "Genuinely grateful to everyone who spent the past few days dunking on me. Taking this gig was obviously a massive mistake on my part.
The Challenge USA and Love Island cast member Cashel Barnett "was charged with felony domestic violence in Utah," KUTV reports. Among the charges: "aggravated assault, a third-degree felony; [and] domestic violence in the presence of a child, a third-degree felony."
Former Food Network star Darnell Ferguson "pleaded guilty May 13 to misdemeanor charges connected with past allegations of domestic violence against his wife," the Courier-Journal reported. In early 2024, Darnell was charged with "felony burglary and strangulation, as well as misdemeanor assault, terroristic threatening, menacing, criminal mischief and theft."
The man who injured Salman Rushdie in a 2022 stabbing attack was sentenced to 25 years — the maximum for attempted murder. Hadi Matar also got seven years for injuring the moderator who tried to defend Rushdie. —SDB
🤩 I recommend
The Dish with Kish, which is better than Top Chef
This video, in which someone turns Wallace and Gromit fiction into reality
This story and this story, both well-told versions of what’s happening to people around us
Thanks for reading to the end. I hope you have a great weekend!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 420 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 23 May 2025, and it’d make a 420 joke except it went through D.A.R.E. in the 1980s