I'd love your feedback • Human vs. Hamster 🐹 is a delight • Survivor has balls
Dear newsletter friends,
I don’t know how we’re suddenly six weeks from the end of the year. 😱
The end of the year, though, means exciting things, like planning for next year!
So, it’s time for my annual survey to help me improve.
If you haven’t already, could you please take a few moments and tell me what you think about reality blurred?
At that link, I revealed our newly, subtly refined logo:
A little more modern, a little sleeker, but still the same great content.
Thanks much to those who’ve already responded to the survey. I already have a list of great suggestions and things I’ll work on.
One note, though, to address something that came up:
- You should never see a pop-up ad on reality blurred! The only exception is the small video player in the corner—which I don’t think of as a pop-up, but maybe that’s just me being used to their ubiquity online. That ad should be easy to close with the X.
- If you do see something other than that—or a broken ad—and you can grab a screenshot, please send that to me, so I can track it down. Online advertising is weird!
Again, thanks. I’m grateful for your feedback, and just for you being here.
🐹 Reviews
I reviewed two light competitions, but there’s only one real winner here:
- Amazon’s Wish List Games 📦
- Max’s Human vs. Hamster 🐹
👅 Recaps
The Summit:
- Episode 8: The prize is lowered as two players leave, and the mountain is evacuated!
- Don’t miss: my interview with Dennis, this season’s self-appointed villain
Survivor 47:
- Episode 10: A heartfelt confession and ball play kept Survivor 47 lively despite an easy vote
- Don’t miss: Survivor’s fun crew profiles, which give us great behind-the-scenes glimpses
🗓️ Reality TV premieres
This week’s reality premieres include new seasons of Canada’s Drag Race and Rhythm + Flow, and more The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Tex Mex Motors, and Mystery at Blind Frog Ranch.
Documentaries and doc series included FX’s Weight of the World, about diet culture and Ozempic; PBS’s Leonardo DaVinci and Peacock’s Making Manson; and PBS’s Attenborough’s Life Journey, about the natural history show narrator
💬 Comments of the week
So much great discussion on so many stories. Here are a few of those comments, ones that made laugh, think, or both:
On this review, Aurora wrote:
Who hurt you? A proposal (ugh)? Why so cynical? It’s cute and a nice spin on a holiday game. Why does that bother you so much?
On this Survivor recap, Melissa wrote:
Thank you for the explanation about Mama Probst. My dad has dementia and it is an absolutely fucking shitty disease. My heart goes out to the Probst family.
On this news about Worst Cooks, Chuck wrote,
Anne made the show, although recent seasons have been a joke. The “worst cooks” are really people just looking for 15 minutes of fame. I’ll probably watch because I watch a lot of Food Network… but Frankie AND Rachel on the same show.. ugh. I hope they both go first.
🗞️ Reality TV news
- Both Taylor Hale and the resurrected AI robot Jankie will probably return to Big Brother, its producers said.
- NBCUniversal is keeping Bravo, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC, and the theme parks, but dumping its cable channels—E!, Oxygen, USA Network, Syfy, MSNBC, CNBC, and the Golf Channel—into a new company that it's calling "SpinCo," LOL.
- Speaking of LOLs: The Real World Boston’s Sean Duffy is nominated to be secretary of transportation, LOL.
- The Voice season 11 winner Sundance Head shot himself in the stomach accidentally when he reached for his gun and dropped it. He was alone, but got to a road and flagged down someone who helped. Sundance posted a video after being released from the hospital in which he says, "I was sure I was going to die."
- Here's a very clear summary of Bachelorette contestant Josh Seiter’s Trans Hoax, Alleged Fake Death, and Why Monica Beverly Hillz Is Involved, thanks to Them’s Mikelle Street.
- Fox will give the post-Super Bowl timeslot to The Floor’s season three premiere, replacing the scripted drama Rescue HI-Surf, which was given that coveted timeslot before it even premiered.
- Comedian Stef Dag was watching the great Showtime series Couples Therapy and realized that one of the couples lived in her apartment.
🤩 I recommend
- This delightful new competition
- These short videos that profile Survivor crew members
- These clips of Miss Piggy mocking Martha Stewart 😂
This newsletter will take next Friday off for Thanksgiving here in the U.S.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and/or week ahead!
See you back in your inbox in December. ☃️
best,
Andy
reality blurred has been independent since its founding in July 2000, and is supported entirely by advertising and readers like you.
🌄 This is issue 398 of reality blurred’s weekly newsletter, first sent on 22 November 2024, and it still has some aches from its annual COVID shot.