Let's talk about Tiger King! 🐯 And Tournament of Champions 🍴, and Making the Cut... ✂️
Dear newsletter friends,
I hope this finds you safe and well.
Before we get into Tiger King and the Survivor merge and Making the Cut and Tournament of Champions, I wanted to share this, which I’ve thought about all week:
I’m not sure who created it, but I want a poster-sized version.
And also one where you can swap out the text between “it’s okay” and “during a fucking pandemic” for other things, like “eat sugar on the couch” or “stop looking at social media.”
Tournament of Champions: TV’s best cooking competition
On Wednesday, Food Network’s Tournament of Champions ended. I loved every minute of its five episodes, from the randomizer to the contestants watching the judges from their green rooms. And how great was that final four?
Honestly, it was a better cooking competition than Top Chef All Stars LA has been so far. Here’s my full review.
I particularly loved the truly anonymous judging, which I think more competitions should try.
Wednesday was also April Fool’s Day. For most of reality blurred’s 20 years, I used that opportunity to publish satirical stories, a tradition rooted in the years I spent working on my college newspaper, where we created a satirical issue every April, and then continued when I launched the site.
In the early years, I’d spend a few days remaking the entire site design on the front page, changing the logo and everything else, plus having fun attempt satire that seemed outlandish but sometimes (!) came (!!) true (!!!).
Alas, I haven’t done anything in two years now, and that’s just because I can’t justify accidentally contributing to misinformation. There was one particularly comical examples of an April 1 piece being taken seriously in the past, and now I just don’t want to risk having something taken seriously.
I haven’t yet figured out a new way to do those stories without that possibility. I’ll keep thinking about ways to bring it back.
If you want to browse through 18 years of those stories, which I think are still a lot of fun, just go here. And know that they are not real!
Oh, how I miss the early 2000s on the Internet.
Let’s talk about Tiger King
This past weekend, I watched all seven episodes in 48 hours, and it was certainly well-crafted to pull me in and keep me invested.
I tried to hint at that with a subtle title for my review: Tiger King excels at throwing bloody chunks at ravenous Netflix viewers.
But the show isn’t sitting well with me. Here’s why.
I’m curious what you thought! Just not about whether Carole is a murderer.
Making the Cut, Survivor, a recommendation, and marathons
Survivor:
On Wednesday, the Survivor winners merged and one voted-out player returned. My favorite moment of the episode was Adam’s comment in the confessional.
Making the Cut:
After you’ve watched the first two episodes of Making the Cut, read my interviews with its first winners and cut designers.
Look for more interviews Monday, with people featured in episodes three and four.
And if you haven’t read my review of Making the Cut, well, there it is!
Funny Dance Show:
A recommendation: E!’s Funny Dance Show, which is playful and ridiculous. It’s just comedians doing absurd dance routines, but they’re not trying to be perfect dancers. You get six routines in each episode.
Marathons and more:
If you need more to watch, there are HGTV and other marathons all week, and this weekend, Shark Week and Puppy Bowl marathons.
Also this week, River Monsters’ Jeremy Wade returned to TV.
As for me, I tweeted yesterday that I’d be okay with a slowdown in new shows premiering. Maybe everyone else has already watched everything on Netflix and Amazon Prime and Disney+ and HBO and Showtime and every cable network, but I feel perpetually behind, so I’d welcome some time to catch up.
I’ll probably be watching more Golden Girls episodes, because that’s what I need.
Keep washing those hands and staying physically distant from other people, but stay connected. I’m glad we’re connected here!
best,
Andy
🌄 This is Reality in Focus issue 188, first sent 3 April 2020, and it misses April Fool’s Day.
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