Fall reality TV • Survivor & DWTS casts • Bachelorette b.s. • Joe Millionaire & Amish in the City
Dear newsletter friends,
Happy September! I took the last two weeks of August to decompress—and travel to Australia with my husband, Nick, for what technically was our honeymoon, even though we got married seven years ago. (Wildfires, COVID, and life delayed the trip.)
While Survivor: The Australian Outback’s location was a 19-hour drive away that we did not make—Australia is a very big country!—we did do other must-see Australia things, such as:
walking by Babe and Bondi’s Bondi Beach rental from Instant Hotel
climbing the Story Bridge, as seen on Instant Hotel
visiting Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin and family’s zoo, where we were able to pet a koala and hang out with kangaroos
I thought it was wild to wander among kangaroos—until I remembered Nick had already eaten several servings of kangaroo by that point, so it was probably similar to walking among cows.
While I’m adjusting to time zones, resting my legs from hikes in the Red Centre, and healing my ego from falling off a mountain bike, I have lots of great reality TV stories for you, including my fall reality TV premiere guide. Enjoy!
🏰 Behind the scenes
While I was away, I launched a new series of conversations with creators of classic reality TV shows.
The first two are must-reads, and I say that because of the insight and amazing stories these two producers shared:
Joe Millionaire’s showrunner, Liz Bronstein, on how it was produced, from the butler to the “slurp”
Amish in the City’s creator, Jon Kroll, shares stories of its development and filming, such as panicked late-night phone calls and how a Big Brother finalist was almost cast
🐹 Reviews
USA’s The Anonymous borrows heavily from The Circle, The Traitors, and other shows—but it works!
Hamsterwatch’s Dingo on how BB26 has improved—plus a GIF and meme analysis of the houseguests
🔩 Recaps
The Bachelorette:
Below Deck:
Claim to Fame:
Also, in our op-ed section, The Confessional:
🔪 True crime
Reviews:
Michael Bay’s Born Evil: a queasy mismatch of director and genre
Worst Ex Ever: how domestic violence flummoxes the legal system
American Murder: Laci Peterson and what makes a true-crime case indelible
Face to Face with Scott Peterson: “Well, then who else did it?”
Killer Lies: Chasing A True-Crime Con Man is the best of both worlds
Only Murders In The Building season 4: Back to the old house
🎧 Listen to The Docket:
True-crime news from Sarah D. Bunting:
Phil Donahue has passed away. While he's IMO the superior daytime-talk Phil, he's perhaps not as associated with the true-crime genre as McGraw—but he's the one who inevitably shows up in the b-roll of major-case documentaries, discussing the capital-I Issues of the case's day. If you only have time for one obituary overview today, I recommend the one from our esteemed colleague Eric Deggans at NPR.
Recently "resurfaced" film showing the "race to save JFK" is going to auction later this month. The late Dale Carpenter Sr. shot a home movie of a later portion of Kennedy's motorcade as it raced to Parkland Hospital, the New York Times reports; while experts don't think it contains new evidence about the assassination itself, it does contribute to a wider picture of the event.
This does seem like the sort of artifact that ought to be donated to the Library of Congress, versus auctioned off, but if you would like to buy it for that purpose, you can bid on the film here.
I recently finished listening to Nathan Masters's Crooked, which I highly recommend as just-interesting-enough non-gory "bedtime true crime." Don't have time for a whole book on Harding-era political shenanigans? Allison Epstein's Dirtbags Through The Ages newsletter from a couple weeks back has a hilarious overview of Harding, scumbag AG Harry Daugherty, and the way that basically every political scandal of the last hundred years is "the fault of Warren G. Harding," VERY proud Ohioan and cornet booster. ...You heard me.
🗓️ Fall reality TV!
My fall reality TV premiere guides are here:
As always, I’ll update those constantly throughout the next three months, so bookmark and check back.
💬 Comments of the week
On this recap, AK wrote:
Yikes, what a disaster of a season. I was still mostly enjoying myself until the finale, even as so much potentially interesting gameplay was wasted by wrong guess after wrong guess. But that winner…woof! If that’s how it was going to end, then what a failure of editing to spend the entire season making us root again Adam, showing him as dumb and unpleasant. There need to be some structural tweaks for next season, because this year showed that the bottom is threatening to fall out of this show.
and Adam wrote:
While I do think the producers and editors are doing a good job of keeping this season entertaining, I can’t help but find this season disappointing compared to the previous two. I want to see the players be successful!!
On this recap, Cherelyn wrote:
I did not read through all the comments but I can only imagine the controversy your writing style prompts. So fun.
🗞️ Reality TV news
Survivor 47’s cast is at least 27 percent podcasters. And so very young!
Top Chef 22 and Tournament of Champions are filming at the same time—and at the same time as a fundraiser for Shirley Chung
From The Digest, reality blurred’s front page mini-blog:
The cast of Dancing with the Stars 33 includes both recent Bachelor franchise stars, Joey and Jenn; Housewives and Traitors star Phaedra Parks; and Anna Delvey in the "WTF? Really?" slot.
Here's the cast, with ABC's descriptions.
Survivor 43’s Ryan Medrano won a silver medal at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. That was in the men's 400 meter, T38 race. (T38 indicates runners with cerebral palsy.) Ryan—who was encouraged to train for the games by fellow Survivor Noelle Lambert—was 0.33 seconds behind the world record-breaking gold medalist.
Clinton Kelly and Stacy London are returning to reality TV, but instead of telling women What Not to Wear, their new Amazon series is Wear Whatever The F You Want. In a press release, they said, "The world has changed a lot since the run of What Not to Wear, and, thankfully, so have we. These days, we have zero interest in telling people what to do, based on society’s norms—because there are no more norms!”
🤩 I recommend
This competition, even though it sounds like a mash-up The Traitors, The Circle, and other shows
This conversation with Joe Millionaire’s showrunner
This conversation with Amish in the City’s creator
That’s everything from the past few weeks. Have a wonderful weekend!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is issue 394 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 6 September 2024, and it did not knock on the door of Bondi Oasis and ask for a margarita.